Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 25" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 25 of the Advocacy Video Series: Let's Wrap It Up! You've joined me for this entire series. We have gone through: framing your advocacy story by answering four questions and creating a script; recording that hosting; editing in Kinemaster, and we've also gone through what you need to make your video accessible, including audio description, captions, and transcripts. Now that is all a ton of information, and, also, everything is a suggestion. The most important thing with an advocacy video or advocacy storytelling is that you want to advocate for a change. My final takeaways for this series is that if it feels overwhelming to make a video, that's because videos can definitely be a lot of work. You don't have to do it by yourself. You can absolutely collaborate with people, get feedback, and also have folks work with you to make your videos more accessible. Be sure to just make the videos authentic to who you are. It doesn't have to be extremely fancy or really highly produced. The most important thing is for you to share your story and share with people why things need to change. You know your experience best, and the more folks that can share their experiences, the better off we're all going to be. I encourage you to dive in and give it a try. Look at our examples at RootedinRights.org/Storytellers for ideas. If the methods that we've talked about don't work for you, try something else. You don't have to write a script, you don't have to use Kinemaster; you can use whatever works for you. Use the tools available to you. Once you have a finished video and you want to share it with folks, you know, think about if you want it on social media; make sure you check on what those format needs are before you make a whole final video in terms of length, if you want to make something longer. There's a lot of great options for hosting. KZbin is always a good one, and you can also post directly on social media sites if that's where you want your story to be. I hope that this breakdown of how to create an advocacy video has been useful, and I really look forward to seeing everyone's stories. If you have questions, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 24" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 24 is Transcripts! So, we just discussed captioning. If you are captioning on KZbin, for example, and you create an SRT file, you can download that SRT file and turn it into a .TXT, a plain text file that will become your transcript. The transcript includes all the audio and all the visual information in your video. So if you have audio description, that should be in your transcript. You should be able to read the transcript and get all of the same visual and audio information that you would get from a video. Now, if you have your video, and you have audio description, and you have captions, why do you need a transcript? Great question, glad you asked. Transcripts are great for folks who are Deafblind, who don't have access to the audio or the visual information. It's also really useful if folks aren't able to download your video. .TXT files are much smaller than videos, and you could read and get the whole information from the video without actually having to watch it. If you don't have great internet access, or if you're trying to send a lot of information, having that transcript is really important. When you download that SRT file, it's going to have the timecode. That's where the text matches up with the timing of the video. To make a transcript, simply take that timecode out, and you've got a transcript. Put a title on it, "Transcript of whatever the title of your video is," and make sure to put "End of transcript" at the end. A plain text file like a .TXT is really great for screen readers because it will be able to read all of that information very clearly, and it will not have any trouble accessing it. For our best practice with transcripts, we try and post the entire transcript directly in the first comment on social media. We do also link them on our website underneath the video, but as much as possible, having that text available right where the video is and not having to click away to it is the best-case scenario. Also, if you're making something that's purely audio, like a podcast, a transcript is the only way to make that podcast accessible, or else all of that audio information is going to be lost if someone can't hear it. So if you've created captions, you've basically already created the transcript. So take that SRT file, turn it into a .TXT, and for step-by-step instructions, go to RootedinRights.org/AccessThat End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 23" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 23: Captioning! All videos should have captions. This provides access for folks who are Deaf or hard of hearing. It also makes it more accessible for folks who have auditory processing needs. It's also great if you just want to watch a video with the sound off, or if English isn't your first language, or if you want to provide subtitling in other languages as well. Captions basically provide access in all of these ways. Also, if you are using ASL to present a video, you can add captions so folks who don't know ASL can follow along with the information that's being shared as well. There are two main types of captioning that are available for folks self-producing their own videos. There are Closed captions, which use an SRT file with the timed text information to match up with a video, and there are Open captions, which are the text burned into the video itself so it becomes part of the visual. Closed captions are great because they're more customizable; you can customize the size and the placement of them. Open captions are great if Closed captions are not an option and you want to make sure your videos have captions. Many many many apps - social media apps - have ways to add Closed captions. Depending on what you're filming on, there may be in-app captioning. So be sure to explore that on whatever app you are recording on. If you have made a video like we did in Kinemaster, you can also upload that video to KZbin and use KZbin's free captioner to create an SRT file, which then will show the captions on KZbin, and you can also import that SRT file into other apps and have the captions available. For the step-by-step information, the nitty-gritty, go to RootedinRights.org/AccessThat, and there will be in-depth information depending on the apps that you want to use. We use KZbin captioning all of the time, and that's what we go into depth there, but lots of social media apps have captioning built into them as well, so it's important that you explore that before you post. Figure out what your needs are; do you want, or do you need, Closed captions or Open captions? And take the time to create those captions. Make sure that everything has correct punctuation, that everything is spelled correctly, that there's a nice format so your captions read nicely on screen. And if you are creating that SRT file, it will be really important to have because you can download that SRT file - particularly from KZbin - and you can take that SRT file and turn it into a transcript, which we are covering next. End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 22" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 22: We're Talking About Audio Description! So if you want to find more in-depth information about audio description, go to RootedinRights.org/AccessThat We have a more in-depth video and lots and lots of resources. But to summarize, audio description is an audio track of the essential visual information in your video. So to simplify it, we recommend having a few things that you make sure to describe. For example, always introducing. If a person is speaking, have them introduce themselves. Don't rely on just the cut or the switching of the frame for folks to be able to notice that a different person is speaking. So always introduce. A second thing that's really helpful with audio description is to make sure you read out any important text on the screen. If there's just text and there's no audio of what's included in that text, that information could get lost for someone that is just listening. We include audio description in the earliest parts of our script so that you can start thinking about including these things as part of hosting. For example, introductions of people talking or writing out audio description for any B-roll that might not be explained in the text. It's not an exact science; there is no perfect way to audio describe. It's just like telling your story - you want to be creative about it. You want to make sure that you are going back in your edit and sharing it with folks, and asking if they think all the essential information is there in the audio track. So think about it while you're scripting, but it's okay to come back to your edited video and write in additional audio description to make sure that everything you need is in there. You don't have to describe every single visual thing that happens in the video; you just want to focus on the most important details. The way I've described screenshots in the background of all of these videos is an example of audio description, and often folks are doing it in videos without really realizing that what they're doing is audio description. Try it out, and make sure that audio description is in your video before you export a cut. End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 21" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 21: Exporting Our Cut! When the video is ready and you want to export it, there is a button at the right-hand side of the click wheel. It looks like a square with an arrow; you're going to select that. This will bring up a menu that gives you some options about the resolution and frame rate that you want to export your video at. As we talked about with filming, I recommend 1080P and 30 frames per second for most things, so you can go ahead and match that in the export. So FHD stands for Full HD, 1080P, and 30 frames per second is the other selection on the click wheel. I recommend those selections. I also recommend the second bar underneath that is a gradient from low to high, which is going to be the bit rate that it's exporting at. I like to put it in the middle, around 10 megabytes per second. I think that that's just great for these kind of videos. And the final option there, you are going to click on the very bottom - the Save As Video. And that's going to start your export process. Now Kinemaster is going to pop up with an ad and ask you to pay money, but you don't actually have to do that. In the upper right-hand corner there's a Skip button, so find that Skip button and click that so that you don't have to pay to export. And make sure not to exit out of the app while this export is processing. Once you've clicked the Save Video button and you've moved past the ad, Kinemaster is going to download your edited video onto the device that you are using. So then you will have this edited video, and you can take that edit, that cut, if you will, and figure out where you want to upload it. Before you upload your video, it should be accessible. We've talked about audio description, which should already be in your video; you've already scripted it and recorded it. We are also going to discuss captions and transcripts. So before you take that video and upload it where you're going to post it publicly, let's talk about adding those accessibility features - up next! End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 20" produced by Rooted in Rights Advocacy Video Series Part 20: We are talking about adding a music track to our edited video and exporting it from Kinemaster. We've got all of our layers: our hosting, our B-roll. We've added additional audio layers of audio description or narration, and we have everything in the order we want it. It's telling the story we want it to tell, and we just need some final pieces. Maybe we want to add some music, give it a little energy. Fortunately, in Kinemaster, they have a tool where you can add music directly and for free. In our click wheel that we've been using to add media, to add layers , and to add audio recordings, there is a fourth option (which looks like a music note), and that option is Audio, and it is on the other far side of the click wheel. When you select that option, it will bring up a menu. This menu is going to bring up a bunch of options: Music, Sound Effects, different recordings, and Playlists. We're going to just focus on the first option, which is Music. When you select Music, it's going to bring up a menu. A bunch of different music selections that you can download for free. Listen through to some songs, and if you go to the far right, there are download buttons, and you can download as many as you want to. Once you've downloaded the songs that you want to use, there is an X button in the upper left-hand corner, and you can go ahead and click X and exit out of this music store menu. It'll bring you back to the Music tab, where you will see the songs that you've just downloaded. You can select one of those songs and click the red plus button, and it will add that song onto your timeline. You can move the music around to where you want it. Go ahead and play it and listen to it with the audio. If the audio is too loud, you can go ahead and select that audio track, just like you've selected any of the other layers, and you can go to the mixer tab that we talked about earlier, and you can bring the volume down or up, and just make sure the music isn't too loud. Also, make sure to trim your music track so that it ends when your video ends, or else the video will continue on for as long as the track is. Continue to play around with maybe one music track, maybe a couple music tracks. Make sure all the volumes on everything sound good; there's no sharp jumps or really loud moments. And just keep watching and re-watching your video, and going back to trim anything, to add anything, to make sure everything feels really smooth. When you feel like you are in a good spot, this is a cut! You have a cut of your video! And if it's the final cut you only have to export it once, but you can also export cuts to send to people to get feedback and notes so that you can go back and edit more. Exporting is up next! End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 19" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 19: Kinemaster continues! In this screenshot behind me, we have an imaginary video where the hosting is perfect, and the B-roll is exactly where we want it to be, and we're feeling very close to having a cut of the video. But we still need to add audio description or possibly additional narration. We're going to talk about audio description separately in terms of what to include for audio description, but for the purposes of the editing, we're going to say that we have our audio description script, and we want to go ahead and directly record new audio description right onto the timeline. So we can do this within Kinemaster. You could also, of course, record it separately and bring in that audio track. But we can also make it simpler for ourselves and use the click wheel again on Kinemaster and select the Record button that is at the very bottom of the click wheel. When we select Record, it will open up another window that will give us volume levels. We can hit Start there and record directly onto our timeline. So it's important here that you put your playhead where you want to record, though you can move it later so it's, you know, you get another chance if you didn't put it quite where you want it. But it's nice for timing to put the playhead where you want the new recording to start so that you can make sure that you are adding in additional audio in space that you already have available. Once you've hit Stop after the recording, you'll see a new audio file pop up as an additional layer underneath of your B-roll. And again, you can move it where you would like it to be, and you can also trim it. The final two Kinemaster things we're going to cover are adding music and exporting. So we have so far gone through bringing in all of our hosting, splitting and cutting out the hosting that we don't want, and tightening up our story structure. Then we have used the Layer tool to bring in B-roll and add an additional layer on top of our hosting to add visual interest. We've also been cutting that, moving that, and of course, watching and rewatching to adjust. We've possibly added transitions. We have also gone through and made sure that we have any audio description that we need, or additional narration recorded and placed on the timeline. So, to finish up, we're going to maybe add a music track and export our video. End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 15" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 15 - More Kinemaster! So before we start chopping away at our hosting, another super important feature is where the playback button is in Kinemaster. It is to the bottom right of the click wheel; there's just a little play button. And basically, that's how you can playback your footage. A huge part of video editing is watching and rewatching what you filmed to get an idea of what you like the best and what you definitely don't like. So as you're going through your footage, when you get to a part of your footage that you want to cut out - you don't want that in the final version - you're going to select your clip. You're going to move the playhead to the beginning of the part of hosting that you don't want. You will hit that little scissor Trim/Split button, and then another menu will pop up from the side, and the third option down is Split. When you select this, it's going to split the timeline exactly where the playhead is. We've hit Split, and now we have two clips instead of one. Now we want to keep moving the playhead to the end of the section that we no longer want in the video, and we're going to hit Split again. We'll select that section that will be split from the rest of them, and we're just going to Delete. The process: Select, Split, Trim/Split again, Split, select that middle section, and hit Delete. End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 18" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 18: More Kinemaster! So, we're bringing in our B-roll, okay? So we're bringing in our B-roll, we are resizing it, and we are turning off the audio so that our hosting audio is what plays while the B-roll is shown. This is also a great time to go back to your script template and look at the ideas that you wrote out. Did you have ideas for where certain B-roll should go? Start pulling that B-roll in and place it to match up with that hosting. Now you can play around with it as much as you want. Any clip on this timeline, you can hold down and move to a different part of the timeline. You can even combine layers if you want. But this is really the moment to start adding the visuals, seeing what you like, and tightening everything up. As you make cuts and bring different parts of the timeline together, there will be little plus signs that show up between the cuts that you've made. When you select these plus signs, it will actually give you some options for transitions. Now, transitions aren't mandatory, but sometimes they help smooth things out, or they just look nice. When you select the plus sign and the Transition menu pops up from the side, there will be lots of options. The third option down is Classic Transitions, and that opens up another menu where the first option is a Crossfade. A Crossfade is just a very standard transition that basically overlaps the end of one clip with the beginning of the next one to create a smooth transition. Those can be nice to add if you like that, but again, transitions are not necessarily mandatory. I recommend not adding any transitions until you feel really comfortable with the order that everything is in and you feel like it's pretty much done, because taking out the transitions is a lot of work. The main thing that you want to be doing at this point - your hosting should be in a solid order, you're adding the B-roll over the top to create that visual interest - and you want to keep replaying, keep watching back, and the closer you get to the solid story and placing things where you want them to be. You want to make sure that everything's flowing as smoothly as possible. No jumps or no awkward transitions; you just want to make sure everything is flowing really nicely and that the visuals are supporting the story. When you feel like you're getting to that place that you feel good about where your hosting is, and good about where your B-roll is, you can then start moving on to the next phase, which will be adding audio description or additional narration. End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 17" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 17: Kinemaster Forever! Alright, we have just brought in our B-roll using the Layer tool from the click wheel. And you'll see that this B-roll got brought in at a little bit of a smaller size. And you can actually go ahead and make that size match. You want to make sure that the B-roll is fully covering your hosting because, essentially, the B-roll is a layer on top of it. So, wherever the B-roll is, it will play over the top of your hosting. Now, unlike my recommendation with hosting, where I said to bring everything in and cut out what you don't like, I do the opposite for B-roll. For B-roll, I like to bring in, piece by piece, the B-roll that I want, and I like to place it exactly where I want it. Now, when you bring in your B-roll, you might have to resize it, so you can just use your fingers to expand it and make it bigger. You can edit and cut the B-roll clips just like the hosting. And, when you select them and highlight them in yellow, you want to go ahead and go to the Mixer from the Edit options, and you want to go ahead and turn the volume off of that B-roll because they're just the visuals. End of Transcript

Transcription of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 16" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 16 - Even more Kinemaster! So, we are using the Trim and Split tools to go all the way down our hosting rewatch, and keep just the best bits. And we're cutting out all the bits that we don't need. Maybe that wasn't the best take; maybe we just don't want to say that anymore. But basically, what we're trying to do is pull out all the stuff we don't want in the final. Now, it shouldn't be perfect right now. It can be messy, it doesn't have to be exactly right. But the main point is to condense your story Into the best bits. Now this is just the hosting; we have not brought B-roll in yet. We're not worried about any of the other columns on the script template. We're just looking at hosting. And we're just trying to make the best story that we can from what we have filmed. So you're going to keep watching, re-watching, and trimming out the pieces that you don't like. Now, you don't have to do it this way; you can also only pull in the pieces that you like. But, that's not how I do it. So I'm telling you how I do it; you can do it however you want. But I find the subtracting method to be easier, but other folks prefer it the other way. So a big part of editing, too, is just figuring out what works for you; getting into a rhythm with it, figuring out what your style is, what your flow is, and what's easiest for you. Don't make it hard if you don't have to. Once you have consolidated down the best bits of hosting, you've picked the best parts of hosting, that is what we refer to as the "Stringout." It is a thread of all of the best parts of your story. When you feel very confident (or pretty close to confident), about how your hosting has come together - you feel like it tells a good story, it makes the points you want to make - then we can move on to the next level of video editing, which is adding in the B-roll, which we're going to do using the Layer tool. The Layer tool is also on the click wheel, and it is to the left of the Media Folder. You're going to select the Layer tool to bring up some options. When you select the Layer tool, another window opens up. The very first option is the Media option; this is the one we want. When you select Media, it's going to bring up the same options as before, where you have access to all of your media. Here, you'll want to add the B-roll that you already filmed. So, in this example, I pulled in me as a lemon on top of me hosting, and you can see that an additional layer has been added underneath of our hosting layer. End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 14" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 14 - More Kinemaster! So once you have selected the media that you want to bring in, (you can always add more) but once you've done your initial selection of all of your hosting, you will go back to this main editing window in Kinemaster, and it will put your clips on the timeline. The timeline is this bar shown here on the bottom of the Kinemaster app. On the upper lefthand side, you can see the previews. So there is a small, red playhead, and as you drag the playhead with your finger, you'll see the preview window change, because wherever the playhead is, is whatever part of the timeline you are editing. Other important things to note about the Kinemaster layout: to the left there is a backward, swirly arrow that is an undo button. If you make a mistake, undo it. Below that is a little garbage can; that is the trash. We are going to use the trash as we edit out parts of our hosting that we don't want. When you click or push on the clips in the timeline, you'll know you've selected the clip to edit because it will be highlighted in yellow and this additional menu will pop out from the side. This menu from the side (lists) a bunch of editing options. The main one that I want us to focus on is the second icon. It's a pair of scissors, and it is the trim split icon. This is what we're going to use to cut out all the parts of our hosting that we don't want anymore. End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 13" produced by Rooted in Rights Alright, my fellow advocacy video makers. We have made it to Editing - Part 13! You've written it. You've filmed it. You have footage ready to be made into a video. Go wherever you get your apps for your device and download Kinemaster. K-I-N-E-M-A-S-T-E-R. It is a free app, and it gives us a lot of great editing tools. Now, I'm going to be showing some screenshots in the background while I'm explaining how to use Kinemaster. If you go to the link in our bio, we actually have a fully written out tutorial for Kinemaster, if that is a better way for you to learn, or if you want to follow along there while I explain here. So behind me is the Kinemaster app. Doesn't look like much right now. The first step that you're going to want to take when opening Kineaster is selecting "Create New." So on the bottom of the Kinemaster app there are four options, and the third one is "Create." And it will open up this orange bar above you that says "Create New." After you select "Create New," you are going to select an aspect ratio. This is very, very small, but there is 16:9 and 9:16, which we talked about earlier when we're setting it up. So match your aspect ratio to however you filmed. If you filmed vertically, pick that 9:16. If you filmed horizontally, pick 16:9. Here is your blank Kinemaster template. Again, this is very small. It will look bigger on your phone. Or, if you have an iPad, that also helps with visibility as well. I should say, too, that I'm teaching Kinemaster because it's a free app that works on the devices that I have used. If you have something that you like and you want to use it, by all means, use that. I just want to give options for folks who are brand new to editing or have struggled to find an app that they like that's free. There's a couple features here on this main page. There is a click wheel to the upper right and the first thing that's really highlighted on it is a little folder that says "Media." That's how you're going to access and bring in all of the things that you filmed into this app and into the timeline, which will be on the bottom, and the preview screen, which will be on the upper left-hand side. When you select "Media," it will bring up a folder of everything that's on your device. So you will be able to access everything that you filmed, anything that you want to pull in. I recommend for this first phase, which will be creating our string out, going to what you have recorded of hosting and bringing in all of your hosting, in order, into the timeline. It's up to you if you want to edit takes one at a time or bring them all in together. I like to bring them all in together. More next! End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series Part 12" produced by Rooted in Rights Alright, Part 12: B-Roll! You've filmed your hosting; you've gotten clean audio; now it's time to film your B-Roll. The same tips apply in terms of filming. I just recommend trying more angles, using different types of shots, and really, really having fun with it. Now, you may not need B-Roll. You can absolutely just record yourself speaking directly to camera, like me. You don't need other shots necessarily; you can just tell your story directly. It's completely up to you. But B-Roll can be a really fun way to add to your story, to give visual interest, and to add layers in the edit. So once you've done your hosting, and you know you've got good audio, have some fun with that B-Roll. Get a lot of it! There is never too much B-Roll! Quick note about the overall process here: If hosting to camera isn't something that you're comfortable with, it's not accessible to you, or you don't want to do it, getting a lot of B-Roll and then adding narration later can be another great option. You can basically just swap out hosting and narration and really gather images that support your narrative. Anything is really possible. For the purposes of this training, we're keeping it pretty focused on one specific method of self-advocacy, but that's absolutely not the only option. There are infinite ways to be creative and play around with things, but we want to just give you a baseline of some tools and tips that you can use to get started. But really, you can do whatever you want to do. Up next, we're going to dive into editing. So congratulate yourself on writing a script, and filming it, and getting B-Roll, and recording the audio. Everything should be now saved on your device. It is easiest for mobile filmmaking if you're editing off the same device that you recorded on. You can of course transfer files; you can airdrop files, you can plug in your phone to another device and transfer it. But the fastest way will be to have everything already on your device so that you can open up the Kinemaster editing app and get to work. Up next! End of transcript.

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series Part 11" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 11: Audio Tips! You've got your script; you're ready to film. We've got the camera set up; we know where we want the camera to be; we know what we want the shot to look like. How do you get good audio? A couple tips. Don't film in a crowded or busy place. The background noise is going to be really distracting. Go for the quietest place that you can find. And feel free to stop if a car drives by or a siren goes off; you just got to stop and start again. Now I've got some earbuds on right now, and that's helping to isolate my voice to record. For mobile filmmaking, if your phone's close enough, it does a pretty good job of picking up your voice. But if you have headphones with a microphone, that will just help your voice be nice, clean, and clear if you are speaking in your video. Now if you're hosting but not speaking, and you're going to be adding narration or adding audio additionally, a good place to record for that if you're looking for something quick and on a budget is to go in your closet and record. The clothes will help isolate the sound of your voice and give you some nice, clean audio that won't be distracting with background noise. When recording both audio and video, I highly recommend pushing record and giving yourself a couple seconds before you start presenting to camera. Whether it's audio, visual, whatever it is, just give yourself a couple moments of stillness because that's really going to help you in editing. If you start talking too quick to the end of a take, or if movement starts before recording's really started, it's going to be much harder to edit things together seamlessly once we get to editing. So hit record, give yourself a couple beats, and then go ahead and present your story. End of transcript.

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series Part 10" produced by Rooted in Rights Alright, Part 10: More tips for filming! We talked about setting up your phone on the backend technically to get it ready to film. Now, physically, how do we want to set it up? A tripod is great for stability. My phone right now is on a tripod, so I can stand in front of it - it's not moving. If you don't have a tripod, that's totally fine. Stack up some books, lean a phone against the wall; just find a way for your phone to be nice and steady. But experiment, see what you like. When you are filming the hosting like I am right now, it's really, really important to have good lighting. When I bring my glasses down here, you can see the ring light that I have right in front of my face that's making me brighter than the background. And that's something you always, always want to do. Whatever the focus of the shot is - if you're hosting, it's usually the person - you want them to be the brightest thing in the shot. So you don't want to film with a bright light source behind you, because then whatever your focus is will be backlit. So don't film in front of a window or with the sun right behind you, unless you're trying to make a silhouette. But if you're not trying to do that, nice, bright light on the subject is really, really important. Use a ring light. Use the sun. Grab a lamp. Just make sure it's nice and bright, and you can see your face when you are presenting your hosting and telling your story. Another thing to consider when filming is what you're wearing or what the person onscreen is wearing. You want to make sure your clothes don't make a lot of noise that could be distracting from what you're saying. It's always great to ask for filming assistance. Filming is much easier when it's not just you by yourself. You can, of course, make it work like I am, right now, filming on my own. But it's always great to have someone come help you set up the camera, give you feedback on how the shot looks, and also give you feedback on your script delivery. When you're filming the hosting, we do recommend that you go beat by beat, which is why we broke it up that way in scripting. So you can go line by line, you can pause after every line. You don't have to say it all at once; you can put it all together in editing. So for hosting, just remember it doesn't have to be perfect. It should just feel authentic to you. And you can stop and start as often as you need. End of transcript.

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series Part 9" produced by Rooted in Rights Alright, we've made it to Part Nine! You have filled out your script, and you are ready to film! Here are some tips to film successfully. As a reminder, if you're looking for script templates or examples of fully filled-out scripts, we also have those at the link in our bio. So, you're ready to film. For this workshop, you're likely filming with a mobile phone or another very portable and accessible device I'm filming on my phone right now. There're a couple things to consider. Before you start filming, you want to make sure you decide if you want to film vertically or horizontal. Vertically, also known as 9 by 16 (9:16), is how we're filming right now. Horizontal, also known as 16 by 9 (16:9), is more of what you see when you watch television. It's totally up to you to pick which is going to work best, but decide, and keep it consistent before you start filming, and think about where you're going to post it. If you're looking to post it on an app where vertical is prioritized, that's great. If you want to put it somewhere where horizontal is more watched, you might want to film it in 16:9. Once you have decided on horizontal or vertical, or "aspect ratio," you also want to make sure you know the frame rate, and the resolution that you're filming in. We're filming right now in 1080 and 30 frames per second (fps). That's a perfectly great, high-definition way to film. You can also, on a lot of devices these days, shoot in 4k and 60 fps, or even higher frame rates. For a typical video where it's you hosting to camera, I think that 1080 and 30 fps is just great. If you do want that higher resolution, have fun with it. It can take a little bit longer to edit, and it also takes up more storage on your phone. So I would just make sure you know why you want that higher resolution. If there's a good reason, go for it. If not, I'd stick with 1080. Another thing you want to make sure of is that you have enough storage on your phone to record. You might be stopping and starting, or taking longer takes, and you want to make sure that you're not cut off in the middle by lack of storage. So see how much storage space you have available, and make sure, I would say, you have at least 10 gigs. That might be overestimating it a little bit, but depending how long your video is, the more space that you will need. When it comes time to film, we always recommend putting your phone on Do Not Disturb and Silent Mode so that other things aren't popping up while you're trying to do a take, and throwing you off. So as much as you can, basically, turn off any other functions of your phone while you're filming, so you can just focus on filming, the better. I've got some more tips for lighting and audio in the next video. End of transcript.

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series Part 8" produced by Rooted in Rights Welcome to Part 8! We have written a script, answering the four questions. And we've put those script ideas in the hosting column of our script - we're back to the script template. We have thought about different types of shots, and visually, what we want our video to look like. And we've written out those ideas in the second column. And we've tried to match up the different hosting beats with the different visual things that we want to film; different types of shots, different environments, and also how we want to film the hosting. The third column, I just want to touch on before we jump into film tips. The third column is audio description and narration. Now, back when we were talking about terms, "hosting" was sort of our apple and "narration" was the little leaf on the side of the apple, because they are both generally things that are said to camera. But sometimes, you want to narrate something that you're not saying directly to camera. Say there's a percentage, a fact, a figure. Maybe it's something you didn't think of at the time of hosting and when you're editing, you want to add it back in. That's a great place, that third column, is great to either add narration to film later or maybe just get audio of. And it's also good to keep track as you go through the edits if you want to add stuff in. Now, audio description is not the same as narration, because audio description has a very specific purpose and that is to be an accessibility feature and to describe the essential visual information in any video. We like to introduce audio description during scripting, because you can sometimes do both hosting and audio description, or audio description and narration together. For example, me introducing what I look like would be an example of hosting and providing audio description. If you have a lot of B-Roll, and the B-Roll is giving more information than what you're saying and hosting, you're going to want to add audio description to make sure that folks really can get that visual information. We're going to go more in-depth into audio description after the editing section of this training. But I think it's really useful to think about describing your visuals as you're coming up with the script and before you film, because there can be great opportunities to just include a description of what you're showing or what you're filming in the hosting. Next, we are going to go into some tech tips and some filming tips. End of transcript.

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series Part 7" produced by Rooted in Rights Part 7! So, as you're filling out the center column of your script template, the "Shot/ B-Roll/ Archival Footage column, you are filling out ideas of what you want your video to look like. We have some suggestions for different kinds of shots to use to keep your video interesting. Below me is a screenshot from one of our advocacy videos titled "Access Nature," and it features our host, who is direct to camera, and they are framed in what we call a "mid-shot." A "mid-shot" is essentially any shot where from about the waist up of a person's body is shown. Usually there's some background that is visible, but the focus is really on the person themselves. This is the main shot that we use for hosting. Which is, for a self- advocacy video, what we recommend when you're saying your script to camera. So, the "mid-shot" is a nice grounding shot to establish who you are and and tell your story directly to people. The next shot, shown below me from the same video, features the same subject, but, it is framed as a "wide shot." So the shot is our host, Syren, walking with a cane down a path in a forest. The camera is far away from Syren, we see them in the distance, and we see a lot of the environment. A lot of the forest and the nature, and because this video was about accessing nature, using this "wide shot" was a great way to give a sense of the environment and tie into the theme. Wide shots are great to establish places, to establish some movement, and to establish people as well. So use your wide shots when you want to set up the environment that you're talking about. Next we have the "close-up." Below me is another screenshot of Syren from the "Access Nature" video and the camera is very close to their face. And you can see some of the background, some of the trees behind them, but the focus is really on Syren's face and their reaction to the environment. Close-ups are great for emotion. They're also great to show detail. And you can film lots of different close-ups and cut between them in the edit and it will keep it visually interesting and can help with pacing as well. The next screenshot is the "Extreme Close-up." So this is a screenshot of a fern leaf from this same "Access Nature" movie. So there's not a person in it, but it's also not a wide shot of the environment. It was a close-up of a fern leaf in motion. This was great to just provide detail and visual interest and don't be afraid of an "Extreme Close-up" for emotion, as well. As you're filling out the second column, keep the visual interest by switching up what types of shots you're imagining. You don't have to stick to this perfectly, but it's a good way to start organizing how you're going to film and how it's going to look in post. End of transcript.

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series Part 6" by Rooted in Rights Welcome to Part 6 where we're diving into the script template! So behind me is a very basic script template that we use at Rooted in Rights. It has three columns. The first one is labeled "Hosting." The second one is labeled "Shot/B-Roll/Graphics/Photos." And the third column is labeled "Audio Description and Narration." And the rows are just numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So, we use this template for after we've brainstormed those four questions we went over in the last session. So you've answered the questions of, "Who are you?" "What happened?" "What did you need?" And "What are you asking for now?" You've expanded or contracted that script, added more details, honed it to where you want it to be, and now our suggestion would be to put it in the script template in the "hosting" column. Now, there's no rule in video that says that you have to host your video directly to camera, but, for the purposes of this training and a self- advocacy video, we find it really useful to tell your own story directly to the camera. And, the bulk of your script is going to be this "hosting" piece. What you are going to say to the camera about your experience. We find it helpful, um, with these rows that are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, to sort of break up that hosting beat by beat. That might be sentence by sentence. It might be idea by idea. But, it's really just to break it down so that when you're filming you can go beat by beat and keep track of where you are. And then as we move over into the other columns, the "Shot/ B-Roll" column and the "Audio Description and Narration" columns we know where to match those things up with your hosting script. So for the second column, "Shot/B-Roll/Graphics/Photos," this is where you can start thinking about, visually, how you want your video to look. So, if you're hosting to camera, that's a visual. If you want photos, pictures from previous times in your life, if you want video illustrating some of the issues that you're talking about, that's all going to go in the second "B-Roll" column. So what we invite people to do is, once you've got your script, your hosting, what you want to say, move on to thinking about what you want it to look like and start writing out what that vision is in the second column. So if you know the first shot's going to be hosting to camera, you can just write that in. Um, in the next part I'm going to go over some shot suggestions for different kinds of shots you can write in the second column. For any script templates or an example script check out the link in our bio. End of Transcript

Transcript of Advocacy Video Series: Part 5 by Rooted in Rights [Music] ALLEXA: Hi everyone, it's Allexa from Rooted in Rights, and I'm here for Part Five of the Advocacy Video Series! And I'm here to talk about scripting. So, step one in producing your advocacy video will be to write a script. If writing a script is not your style, that's fine, but here's what we recommend. When you're making an advocacy story, you want to take your personal narrative and you want to connect it to a larger issue. To get started on your script, we recommend answering four questions. Question one: Who are you? Write one to two sentences about who you are and a brief description. Visual description is great to include here. Question two is: What happened? What is the circumstance, the issue, the experience that you had that you're going to talk about. Part three is: What did you need? So you had this experience. What was missing from that experience? What did you need at that time? Question four - to answer - is: What are you asking for now? Who are you? What happened? What did you need? And what are you asking for now? A great place to start is to write one to two sentences answering each of these questions. Once you have those questions answered, you can decide if you want to expand them, if you're making a longer piece, or keep them nice and tight, if you're making a short video. Also consider your audience. Who are you looking to reach with this video? Are you talking to peers? Are you, maybe, talking to legislators? The audience that you have can impact the tone you want to use. Do you want to be more casual and informal because you're talking to peers? Or do you want to be a little more concise and specific, depending on your audience. At Rooted in Rights, we use a simple script template and that script template basically has three columns. That first column is your "Hosting." What are you going to say on camera? And that's going to be your one to two sentence answers from your scripts. That second column is "B-Roll," which we're going to talk about in the next part. Which is going to be visually, what are you showing? Are you showing the hosting, the talking to camera? Or are you going to use B-roll, or other shots, to support that hosting. The third column that we have is an "audio description" column, which we're going to be talking about later, Which is an accessibility feature to make sure you're describing the visual information that's in your B-Roll. In the next part, I'm going to break down that script template just a little bit more. So join me for that. End of transcript.

Transcript of "Faces of Solitary- Joshua" produced by AVID and Rooted in Rights JOSHUA: My name's Joshua Jackson (thrumming music) I've been in prison twelve years. Twelve and a half years, something like that, and, I've spent seven and half years of them twelve years in the IMU's. I'm at Monroe Correctional Complex, Special Offenders Unit, C Unit. So when I came to prison, being that I was all in the newspapers, they took me right off the prison bus, and they threw me in the hole. So, eventually it was going to be like for a couple of days that I was going to be in the hole. Because they wanted to check and see if I needed involuntary protective custody. And, I didn't, you know. But, when I found out they wasn't going to let me out of the hole, I started acting out. Flooding my cell, doing self-harm. They would write me up for this stuff, and, eventually, there were so many write ups, that they recommended me for a program. And they sent me from there to Stafford Creek. And I stayed there about six or seven months. (metallic clang) I had something happen where one side of my face had got paralyzed. You know, and it's still like that, you know, and, they weren't giving me no medical help. A long time they never gave me no medical help. And then my behaviors just kept getting worse and worse. Because they kept me isolated. They just kept me in this box all day, and they wouldn't let me out. And um - then they sent me here, to Monroe, to their IMU. And I ended up staying in the IMU over there about three and half, three and a half years almost. You know, they weren't giving me no help. They were just leaving me there. And every time I do self harm, they would strap me to a bed, or they put me in a chair. I mean there was months I was on the bed. It's just- like, it's just a joke. This mental health is a joke. And it was a nightmare and I was so angry! And then you got, not just me, you got other inmates in here, that have severe mental health problems. They used to have a thing where they would say, "I need to see blood before I can come down there and talk to you." There are lot of people in IMU, don't belong in IMU. That if they were given the proper mental health care, they would they would- they'd have a way to utilize it, instead of acting out. NARRATOR: Since filming, Mr. Jackson was released and is living successfully in the community. End of Transcript

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 4" produced by Rooted in Rights ALLEXA: Welcome to part four of the Advocacy Video Series. I'm back with more fruit and terms. I'm currently two eyes and a mouth on a pear. Our next term for this series is B-roll. B-roll is any footage that's not hosting. So when you're filming, and when you're editing, you capture B-roll and you edit B-roll into your film. So B-roll can really be anything, it can be shots of a city, pictures of fruit, photographs, footage of the host doing the things described in the video. B-roll helps set the scene for your video and keeps things interesting. I'm now two eyes and a mouth on a strawberry, and the next term is "stringout". So that makes me a Stringout Strawberry. Making a stringout is part of the editing process, so once you have filmed everything and you're bringing everything into editing, the stringout is when you have selected all of your best hosting, all the things you want, and you put it in the order that you want it for the final video. The stringout is important because it's all the best stuff in the order that you want it, and it's important to lock this in before you get to the cut. I'm now two eyes and a mouth on the crown of a pineapple, which is the part that you cut off and don't eat, which is great because we're talking about the next term, "cut". The cut! It's going to be an export of your video with B-roll added, music added, narration added, sound effects, audio description should be in there. You're going to take your stringout, you're going to add all these additional elements, and you're going to make a cut from those. In addition to being an export of your video with all the elements, a cut is also a term used for editing. You will make cuts when you're selecting the footage you want, and you will cut away the footage you don't want. And what are we going to be using to export and make all of these cuts, you ask? Kinemaster! Our last term for the series is Kinemaster. Now, Kinemaster is not really a term, it's the name of a program, so that's why I'm two eyes and a mouth on a bunch of different tomatoes, because tomatoes are fruit but we don't consider them fruits, in the way that Kinemaster is a term for this series, but it's not actually a term. Kinemaster is an app to edit video on your mobile phone, and it's the editing that I will be using and teaching in this video series. You can download Kinemaster in the app store for iOS, for Google, for a bunch of other phones and tablets. I haven't found one it hasn't worked on. Kinemaster is K-i-n-e-m-a-s-t-e-r and it's a free app. Up next, tips for scripting! End of transcript.

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 2" produced by Rooted in Rights ALLEXA: Welcome to the Advocacy Video Series, Part 2. I'm Allexa from Rooted in Rights, and I'm a white woman with brown hair and I'm wearing yellow heart-shaped glasses. At Rooted in Rights we use video to advocate for change, and we want to help you do the same. In this series we're going over tools to help you tell your story in video form. For folks with disabilities, sharing our stories can be complicated, so here's some things to consider before you get started. The most important thing to consider before you share your story is making sure it's right for you to share the story. Check in with yourself. Do you feel ready to share it? Is it your story to tell? If you choose to share your story publicly, are you ready for the feedback that might come back to you? Remember that you don't owe anyone your story. Advocacy can be really exhausting and it's important to take care of yourself first. If you're not sure if you want to post the story publicly, that's no problem. You can go through the whole process, make a video, and just choose not to post it. If you're ready to get started, the next video will be reviewing terms that we're going to use throughout the series, and then video 4 is where we're going to start scripting. End of transcript.

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 1" produced by Rooted in Rights ALLEXA: Do you have a story to share but you don't know where to start? Hi, I'm Allexa from Rooted in Rights, and we tell disability stories by and for disabled people. I'm a White woman with brown hair, and I'm wearing yellow heart-shaped glasses. We're going to be sharing a series with you all, about how to make your own advocacy video. There's lots of different ways that you can share stories. You can share it in a podcast, you can write a letter to a legislator, but at Rooted and Rights, we mainly do it using video stories, so we want to share tips and tools with you all for how you can do that too. Storytelling can be a really effective advocacy tool because it allows you to connect your personal experience with larger systemic issues. For folks with disabilities like me and my team, oftentimes the stories told about us are wrong, and being able to share your own story is an opportunity to change the narrative. You are the expert of your own experience and your story is important. So if you want to know how to structure a story, how to script it, how to film it using your mobile phone, how to edit with some free editing tools, and how to make all of that content accessible, follow our series, and we're going to show you how. Check out our existing stories at RootedInRights.org /Storytellers, and follow us for the rest of the advocacy video series. End of transcript.

Narrator] Border Narratives, stories of people with disabilities living at the US Mexico border. [Audio Description] A montage of arid landscapes and cities. Next, a man is interviewed remotely against a map background. [Lawrence] My name's Lawrence Brown the third and I am from El Paso, Texas. I am Mexican American but I'm also Black American. I am blind. [Audio Description] Lawrence plays a drum kit beside a keyboardist. [Lawrence] I've been a professional musician for my entire adult life. It's the first job I ever had and it's the longest running job I've ever had. Right now I'm working at the University of Texas at El Paso with the dance department playing some traditional Afro Cuban rhythms. [Audio Description] Lawrence in a two-piece suit with his guide dog, he prepares for a concert. [Lawrence] I have my own project, it's called the Vitruvian Project and that's a hiphop project. My dad's a big hiphop head and I always grew up listening to a lot of hiphop. [Audio Description] An aerial view of El Paso at sunset, mountains loom in the arid landscape behind. [Lawrence] El Paso is the pass. It was the way that the Spanish found to get through these mountains, which are Franklin Mountains and then you’d get into what is now New Mexico. [Audio Description] A monochromatic map of North America zooms in to show a red border line between El Paso and neighboring Juarez. [Lawrence] In a lot of ways, in El Paso, you have this wonderful community feeling and then at the border, you have all the worst and most ugly sentiments that have kind of plagued this country from its outset. It's just a different little mutation. [Audio Description] Cars file through a border crossing. [Lawrence] With my disability, I cannot make eye contact and my eyes roam around when I pull up to the customs and border patrol people. I try to have my cane out even though I'm sitting in a car and I won't be using my cane at all. So that then maybe they'll see it and get the hint that I'm blind 'cause if not, you know, if I'm the one handing off the passports, it's not gonna be a regular sort of a handoff. It might look like I'm drunk or it might look like this or that, you know and I've gotten a lot of comments, like, had a long night or had a rough day or had a, you know, and it's like, no, I'm just blind. And then once they ask you for the documentation, then you've gotta be prepared for whatever they're gonna throw at you. You know, I own a car, I'm a drummer so I have to carry a lot of equipment around, so I'll have somebody drive me. And you know, the inevitable question is, whose car is this? You know, it's like, it's my car. Well, why is he driving? Because I'm blind. [Audio Description] A bridge separating El Paso and Juarez at the border. [Lawrence] The experiences that happen at the bridge, if you're in a car and the occupants of that car are multiracial or they don't fit into the typical family mold of what is being profiled, reminded me of reading about the Jim Crow experiences that so many had in the South, and knowing that my father's family had those sorts of experiences coming from Louisiana into Mississippi into Texas. You have, you know, one class of people dismissing another class of people based on the color of their skin. So if you don't fit into, well, everybody in the car is white, or everybody in the car is brown or everybody in the car is black or everybody, then they immediately assume that you're up to no good. [Audio Description] A sign at the border reads, have your documents ready. [Lawrence] It's a tough situation to talk about because it seems like if you don't want your mind to be changed, it's not gonna be changed. [Audio Description] Lawrence playing drums and singing with his band in a small club. [Lawrence] I hope that the future narrative, becomes the narrative of everyday life. Not the narrative of the media, but the narrative of a life where, you know, there might be a festival going on in Juarez. So we go and we check that out and then we spend some money over there and then we come back and we do our thing here. We work, we make connections, the narrative of a situation where students can come to school here and get a better education. And that that's a good thing. [Audio Description] An aerial shot of El Paso at dusk. City lights glowing beneath a dark pink sky. [Lawrence] I want people to know that without the joint economies of the two cities, this area would be destitute. We wouldn't have the money that we have, we wouldn't have the prosperity that we have. [Audio Description] Crowds of people crossing a fenced in bridge. [Lawrence] Just because we're not represented doesn't mean that we're not gonna have an increasing space in the narrative of this country and in the narrative of this world as we become more globalized. The love of family and the love of taking care of one another, those are things that we hold really dear in the culture here and I think that's why we're one of the safest cities in the country. If we want to have hope in the American nation as a whole, we need to look to our border towns to learn what we're doing wrong and maybe learn a little bit about what's going right. [Narrator] Border Narratives, produced by Arizona Disability Law Center and Rooted In Rights, Funding by Borealis Philanthropy. END OF TRANSCRIPT

[Narrator] "Border Narratives", stories of people with disabilities living at the US-Mexico border. [Audio Description] A montage of arid landscapes and cities. Next, a woman with short hair and glasses is interviewed remotely against a virtual cactus background. [Alisha Vasquez] My name is Alisha Vasquez. I am from Tucson, Arizona. I'm fifth generation Tucsonanse. Meaning my family has occupied these lands that have been historically cared for by the Tahanate, Yoemy and Apache people and my family has been here since 1880. [Audio Description] A monochromatic map of North America zooms in to show a red border line between Tucson and neighboring Altar. [Alisha] My great great grandfather Adolfo Vasquez was born in Altar Sonora Which is about two hours South of Tucson. The line that exists between the US and Mexico didn't exist when he was born. [Audio Description] Photograph of the red iron border wall cutting through the desert. A tall cactus in the foreground. [Alisha] It was pretty much not the border as we understand it today until about 1994 and we started to see this fortification of our southern border with Mexico. [Audio Description] An aerial view of Tucson sprawling outward towards arid mountains. Next street car passes in front of a downtown center. [Alisha] Like most cities of its size Tucson is going through this incredible gentrification boom; which is displacing and pricing out people that have been here. Indigenous folks, folks without money, and then of course disabled people kind of fall in that disposable category. And so this downtown center that my grandfather grew up in that my family you know kind of helped create, is going through this just immense wave of demolishing and then building anew without the brown and black bodies that were there. [Audio Description] Alisha sits on a carpeted floor playing with a small girl. [Alisha] Right now I’m identifying as a Crip Chicana mama. I am the proud parent of a three year old named Athena. [Audio Description] Alisha in the kitchen with Athena. Crutches lean against the counter top. [Alisha] I was born with a short left leg and I've had about twenty surgeries to quote unquote “correct” my short leg and so I've been in a wheelchair and crutch user since I was five years old. [Audio Description] Alisha sits outside her small brick home typing on a laptop in the shade. [Alisha] When I started college it gave me a whole new set of lenses with which to understand my life. Being from Tucson, I was the first person in my family to make it by a scholarship to the University of Arizona where I felt like a total outsider. Feeling like the other as a poor person, feeling like the other as chicana, feeling like the other as a woman, all of those things intersected but it was here that I really started to see myself through Crip eyes. And I would say it was still very much trying to mimic the super Crip mentality that I think so many of us have. I think that was part of my pushing myself like "I'm gonna be a success". "I'm gonna go to college to get out of poverty," "I'm not gonna complain because other people have it worse." I think that that for a lot of disabled people gets us stuck in performing and doing things that actually end up hurting us physically, spiritually, and emotionally. [Audio Description] Alisha uses crutches to walk beside her husband while Athena pedals a bike in front. [Alisha] It wasn't until, I would say I was about thirty-three and I really wanted to become a parent, that I finally said "You know what, my body's different," and I started to honor that and I started to unlearn neoliberal capitalist notions of what success is, and I started to unlearn super Cripdom. And that meant you know, giving up a lot of the identities that I thought defined who I was. [Audio Description] Alisha uses crutches to navigate downtown Tucson. [Alisha] When I became pregnant it became harder to walk. I’m definitely physically not ever gonna be what I was four years ago today, but also like I don't miss that I don't wanna be that anymore. And so unlearning those coping mechanisms that I think a lot of especially Mexican-American women hold in order to just survive. They're survival mechanisms my mom gave me a lot of them, but they're from the perspective of an able-bodied person so unlearning them as Crip Chicana mama, it's gotten me to the space to where I can understand why I was the way that I am, understand why society is the way it is, but also its given me the knowledge and power to be very true to myself and that's been, I think the most liberating experience of my life. [Audio Description] Paper flowers hang from a traditional thatched roof. Next Alisha tours a museum exhibit. [Alisha] So the Mexican-American Heritage and History museum was founded in March of 2019 and I was appointed co-director in February of 2022, and I'm hoping to bring my experience as a middle school, high school, college educator, as well as a community activist who very much is honoring place-based history, place-based heritage and place-based culture. I want to create this moment where people can unlearn all of the colonial narratives, all of the meta narratives that we've been fed, to understand that they themselves don't have to believe what the media is telling them, what politicians are telling them, and even what their family members are telling them. I see that as my role as an educator, to create these spaces where people can get talking and to think a little bit more critically about what the border is. [Audio Description] Alisha sits smiling. Her chin resting on her crutches. In the background, a panoramic view of sunny Tucson. [Narrator] Border Narratives produced by Arizona Disability Law Center and Rooted in Rights. Funding by Borealis Philanthropy. END OF TRANSCRIPT

[Narrator] “Border Narratives”, stories of people with disabilities living at the US Mexico border. [Audio Description] A montage of arid landscapes and cities. Next, a person with long hair, streaked with blonde and wearing an orange knit hat is interviewed remotely against a map background. They are dubbed in Spanish by a voice actor [Amalia] My name is Amalia Mondragon and I am from the border of Ciudad Juarez, El Paso, Texas and La Nueva, New Mexico. [Audio Description] A monochromatic map of North America zooms in to show a red borderline between El Paso and neighboring Juarez. [Amalia] El Paso's still very connected to being from the earth. There's not like super high skyscrapers and there's a lot of open area, the mountains are in your face, they're not all built on. [Audio Description] An aerial shot of low lying Juarez at the US Mexico border. [Amalia] Juarez, you know, it's my other half, my family, my friends, it's the same desert. The only difference is that wall. [Audio Description] An aerial shot of a rusted iron wall cutting through the desert and receding into the distance. [Amalia] People that live there have been there for generations and the border crossed them. The people who are gentrifying obviously don't have a connection to El Paso and so they want to bring New York here, they want to bring LA, they want to bring Austin and they're not understanding that El Paso and Juarez are its own historical beauty. [Audio Description] El Paso at sunset, shadowed mountains loom in the distance. [Amalia] El Paso likes to blame Juarez. It's like that blame it on the little sister kind of thing. So Juarez always takes the blame for a lot of things that happen in El Paso. People go to Juarez to do their dirty business and then come back to El Paso and they just wash their hands and then say, Oh it was Juarez, it's Juarez's fault. [Audio Description] A selfie of Amalia smiling in soft, warm light. Next, a photo of them in cowboy boots and a multicolored skirt, arms raised in a V and looking upwards. [Amalia] I identify as Transfronterizx. A Transfronterizx person is a person who navigates both sides of the border. The X is non-binary, and it's kind of a play on words as well, because I'm in the trans world, just transiting the world of genders. [Audio Description] Amalia sings and plays guitar for a small seated group. [Amalia] I was diagnosed with ADHD in first grade. My whole life, even though English was shoved down my throat I had a really hard time retaining anything I read. I was the first person in my family to ever go to college so there was absolutely no information. I was swimming in the dark by myself. [Audio Description] Photo of Amalia tuning their guitar. [Amalia] The department that I was in, which was music, was very insensitive. They were trying to weed people out. So if you can't handle this, then you need to get out. So I failed. [Audio Description] An aerial shot of downtown El Paso. [Amalia] I moved to El Paso eventually to go to school at El Paso Community College and I came across the most amazing center for students with disabilities. They were really helpful with the part of raising your self-esteem to know that you can do it. That maybe it might take extra time, whatever amount of time it takes, that's your process. Later on, once I got better at note taking a tutor position opened up and they offered it to me, and eventually I became the highest paid tutor, which was really cool. [Audio Description] Aerial view of a bridge hovering above the US Mexico border. [Amalia] There are people with disabilities on the border, migrants with disabilities. There's people that have disabilities beforehand and then there's people that suffer accidents on their way through their journey to migrate. Where they lose a leg or they become paralyzed when they jump, they go through a lot of things. Human trafficking is real and a lot of horrible, horrible, horrible things happen. [Audio Description] A wall of reinforced chain and barbed wire, a border patrol SUV guards an entrance. [Amalia] People are left with mental health issues and traumas and PTSD. Unfortunately, ICE and MPP and a lot of the border customs people, they don't talk about the disabled people and the disabilities that live among people who cross. [Audio Description] Crowds of people crossing a fenced in bridge. [Amalia] Because that would be a way of seeing the migrants in a compassionate light. I mean, I haven't seen people or the media view migrants as people, as humans. [Audio Description] Amalia performing outside; a small child swings gently in a hammock. [Amalia] I grew up in a time period where it was very discriminatory to be disabled in any shape or form. And it has taken a lot of work, a lot of work, to change the tape in my head from I can't do this to there's a way to do this and you just gotta find it. [Audio Description] The rusted metal border wall cutting through the desert. [Amalia] And if we're able to understand where we tend to struggle or have trouble, then we can really grow from that. [Narrator] Border Narratives, produced by Arizona Disability Law Center and Rooted in Rights. Funding by Borealis Philanthropy. END OF TRANSCRIPT

[Narrator] "Border Narratives", stories of people with disabilities living at the U.S./Mexico border. [Audio Description] A montage of arid landscapes and cities. Next, a man with sunglasses and a headset is interviewed remotely against a map background. He is dubbed in Spanish by a voice actor. [Daniel] Hello, my name is Daniel Martinez and I'm from Brownsville, Texas. I identify as a Chicano man. I'm 31 years old. I am an educator and a mentor. I participate in different programs working with families of students with disabilities. I love playing music, dancing, doing art. [Audio Description] Photo of Daniel from the back walking with the cane beside a toddler. [Daniel] Six months ago I became a father, so a lot of the music that I'm playing and listening to is geared for children and my baby is having a lot of fun. [Audio Description] A monochromatic map of North America zooms in to show a red border line between Brownsville and Matamoros. [Daniel] I was born and raised in Brownsville, Texas. My family comes from Matamoros, Mexico, and these are border towns. Border towns, it means that I can live the best of both worlds, one way or the other. My wife and child were born in Matamoros, and I go and come back quite frequently. [Audio Description] Sections of a river curve through a low-lying city dotted with lush trees. [Daniel] Brownsville, Texas is a very peaceful place. The majority of us are Hispanic. As a blind individual, I have high expectations for my community. Unfortunately, it's not always the most accessible place. However, I'm finding that, communicating with leaders in the community, they are paying attention, and I want to be more involved to make that difference in my community. [Audio Description] A street intersection of a small town. Next, a corner market with vibrant, hand-painted signs in Spanish. [Daniel] Matamoros is a beautiful place, not visually, but culturally. The music, the food, and the people, they are quite engaging, but I could tell you that I expect a whole lot less from Matamoros than I do from Brownsville. [Audio Description] A photo of a Mexican flag billowing atop a state building. [Daniel] Mexico does have non-discriminatory laws. However, people with disabilities are not being granted those rights. [Audio Description] A woman in a wheelchair beside the tall, iron border wall. [Daniel] It's as if they were not in existence. And that's quite unfortunate. However, when I'm out and about, people are quite respectful, and that's what I love, that they're not mandated to not discriminate against me, but they usually don't. [Audio Description] Crowds of people with masks form lines between stout fences. [Daniel] In early 2021, I started asking my city officials what they were doing to obtain vaccines for people with disabilities, and I heard crickets. Over time, I heard from an organization, Down By The Border. [Audio Description] Down By The Border webpage, with tagline "An association helping children with special needs". [Daniel] They were doing the same. They were asking the city why people with disabilities were not receiving services. When I reached out to the organization, right away they recruited me to be part of their outreach program. And it's unfortunate that the city basically stated that they didn't have the manpower to reach out to people with disabilities. Down By The Border stepped up and provided that service. But in reality, the city should have been responsible for that. [Audio Description] Photo of Daniel standing with a white cane and wearing a suit and tie. [Daniel] People with disabilities are not part of the conversation when people talk about situations in the border. I would like the narrative regarding disabilities to improve. The way it would improve would be for people on both sides of the border to be conscientious of the needs of people with disabilities. [Narrator] "Border Narratives", produced by Arizona Disability Law Center, and Rooted in Rights. funding by Borealis Philanthropy. END OF TRANSCRIPT

[Narradora] "Relatos de la frontera", historias de personas con discapacidad que viven en la frontera Estados Unidos - México. [Audiodescripción] Un escenario de paisajes áridos y ciudades. Luego, un hombre es entrevistado en remoto con un mapa de fondo. Es doblado al español por un actor de doblaje. [Lawrence] Me llamo Lawrence Brown tercero y soy de El Paso, Texas. Soy mexicano-americano pero también soy negro-americano. Soy ciego. [Audiodescripción] Lawrence toca la batería junto a un teclista. [Lawrence] He sido músico profesional durante toda mi vida adulta. Es el primer trabajo que tuve y es el más largo que he tenido. Ahora mismo trabajo en la Universidad de Texas en El Paso con el departamento de danza tocando algunos ritmos tradicionales afrocubanos. [Audiodescripción] Lawrence, con un traje de dos piezas y su perro guía, se prepara para un concierto. [Lawrence] Tengo mi propio proyecto, se llama Vitruvian Project y es un proyecto de hiphop. Mi padre es un gran aficionado al hiphop y yo siempre crecí escuchando mucho hiphop. [Audiodescripción] Una vista aérea de El Paso al atardecer, las montañas se asoman en el árido paisaje de atrás. [Lawrence] El Paso es el paso. Fue el camino que los españoles encontraron para atravesar estas montañas, que son las Montañas Franklin y luego te adentrarías en lo que ahora es Nuevo México. [Audiodescripción] Un mapa monocromático de América del Norte se amplía para mostrar una línea fronteriza roja entre El Paso y la vecina Juárez. [Lawrence] En muchos sentidos, en El Paso, tienes este maravilloso sentimiento de comunidad y luego en la frontera, tienes todos los peores y más feos sentimientos que han aquejado a este país desde sus inicios. Es sólo una pequeña mutación diferente. [Audiodescripción] Los coches pasan por un paso fronterizo. [Lawrence] Con mi discapacidad, no puedo hacer contacto visual y mis ojos vagan de un lado a otro cuando me acerco a la gente de la aduana y la patrulla fronteriza. Intento tener mi bastón fuera aunque esté sentado en un coche y no vaya a utilizarlo en absoluto. Para que tal vez lo vean y capten la idea de que soy ciego, porque si no, ya sabes, si soy yo quien entrega los pasaportes, no va a ser una entrega normal. Podría parecer que estoy borracho o podría parecer cualquier cosa, ya sabes, y he recibido muchos comentarios, como, tuvo una larga noche o tuvo un día difícil, ya sabes, y es como, no, sólo soy ciego. Y una vez que te piden la documentación, entonces tienes que estar preparado para lo que sea que te vayan a lanzar. Sabes, tengo un coche, soy baterista y tengo que llevar mucho equipo, así que pido a alguien que me lleve. Y la pregunta inevitable es, ¿de quién es este coche? Ya sabes, es como, es mi coche. Bien, ¿por qué está conduciendo él? Porque soy ciego. [Audiodescripción] Un puente que separa El Paso y Juárez en la frontera. [Lawrence] Las situaciones que se dan en el puente, si estás en un coche y los ocupantes de ese coche son multirraciales o no encajan en el típico molde familiar de lo que se está perfilando, me recuerdan a la lectura de las experiencias de Jim Crow que tantos vivieron en el Sur, y a saber que la familia de mi padre tuvo ese tipo de experiencias al venir de Luisiana a Misisipi y a Texas. Hay una clase de personas que rechaza a otra clase de personas por el color de su piel. Así que si no encajas en, bueno, todo el mundo en el coche es blanco, o todo el mundo en el coche es marrón o todo el mundo en el coche es negro, entonces inmediatamente asumen que no eres bueno. [Audiodescripción] Un letrero en la frontera dice: "Tenga sus documentos preparados". [Lawrence] Es una situación difícil de hablar porque parece que si no quieres que tu mente sea cambiada, no va a ser cambiada. [Audiodescripción] Lawrence tocando la batería y cantando con su banda en un pequeño club. [Lawrence] Espero que la narrativa del futuro sea la narrativa de la vida cotidiana. No la narrativa de los medios de comunicación, sino la narrativa de una vida en la que haya un festival en Juárez. Entonces vamos y lo comprobamos y luego gastamos algo de dinero allí y luego volvemos y hacemos lo nuestro aquí. Trabajamos, hacemos conexiones, la narrativa de una situación en la que los estudiantes pueden venir a la escuela aquí y obtener una mejor educación. Y que eso es algo bueno. [Audiodescripción] Una toma aérea de El Paso al anochecer. Las luces de la ciudad brillan bajo un cielo rosa oscuro. [Lawrence] Quiero que la gente sepa que sin las economías conjuntas de las dos ciudades, esta zona estaría en la miseria. No tendríamos el dinero que tenemos, no tendríamos la prosperidad que tenemos. [Audiodescripción] Multitud de personas cruzando un puente cercado. [Lawrence] Sólo porque no estemos representados no significa que no vayamos a tener un espacio cada vez mayor en la narrativa de este país y en la narrativa de este mundo a medida que nos globalizamos. El amor por la familia y el amor por cuidarse unos a otros, son cosas que tenemos muy presentes en la cultura de aquí y creo que por eso somos una de las ciudades más seguras del país. Si queremos tener esperanza en la nación estadounidense en general, tenemos que mirar a nuestras ciudades fronterizas para aprender lo que estamos haciendo mal y quizás aprender un poco sobre lo que va bien. [Narradora] Relatos de la frontera, producido por Arizona Disability Law Center y Rooted in Rights. Financiado por Borealis Philanthropy. FIN DE LA TRANSCRIPCIÓN

[Narrador] "Relatos de la frontera", historias de personas con discapacidad que viven en la frontera Estados Unidos - México. [Audiodescripción] Un escenario de paisajes áridos y ciudades. Luego, una persona con el pelo largo, con mechones rubios y con un gorro de punto naranja es entrevistada en remoto sobre el fondo de un mapa. Es doblada al español por una actriz de doblaje. [Amalia] Me llamo Amalia Mondragón y soy de la frontera de Ciudad Juárez, El Paso, Texas and La Unión, New México. [Audiodescripción] Un mapa monocromático de América del Norte se amplía para mostrar una línea fronteriza roja entre El Paso y la vecina Juárez. [Amalia] El Paso sigue estando muy conectado con la tierra. No hay rascacielos muy altos y hay muchas zonas abiertas, las montañas están en tu cara, no están todas urbanizadas. [Audiodescripción] Una toma aérea de la zona baja de Juárez en la frontera Estados Unidos-México. [Amalia] Juárez, ya sabes, es mi otra mitad, mi familia, mis amigos, es el mismo desierto. La única diferencia es ese muro. [Audiodescripción] Una toma aérea de un muro de hierro oxidado que atraviesa el desierto y se pierde en la distancia. [Amalia] La gente que vive allí ha estado durante generaciones y la frontera les ha cruzado. La gente que se está gentrificando obviamente no tiene una conexión con El Paso y por eso quieren traer Nueva York aquí, quieren traer Los Ángeles, quieren traer Austin y no están entendiendo que El Paso y Juárez tiene su propia belleza histórica. [Audiodescripción] El Paso al atardecer, las montañas sombreadas se asoman en la distancia. [Amalia] A El Paso le gusta culpar a Juárez. Es como eso de echarle la culpa a la hermana pequeña. Así que Juárez siempre tiene la culpa de muchas cosas que pasan en El Paso. La gente va a Juárez a hacer sus negocios sucios y luego vuelven a El Paso y se lavan las manos y luego dicen, Oh fue Juárez, es culpa de Juárez. [Audiodescripción] Una selfie de Amalia sonriendo bajo una luz suave y cálida. Luego, una foto con botas vaqueras y una falda multicolor, con los brazos levantados en V y mirando hacia arriba. [Amalia] Me identifico como Transfronterizx. Una persona Transfronterizx es una persona que navega por ambos lados de la frontera. La X es no binaria, y es una especie de juego de palabras también, porque estoy en el mundo trans, sólo que transitando el mundo de los géneros. [Audiodescripción] Amalia canta y toca la guitarra para un pequeño grupo sentado. [Amalia] Me diagnosticaron con TDAH en primer grado. Toda mi vida, aunque el inglés me lo hicieron tragar, me costó mucho retener todo lo que leía. Fui la primera persona de mi familia en ir a la universidad, así que no había absolutamente ninguna información. Nadaba sola en la oscuridad. [Audiodescripción] Foto de Amalia afinando su guitarra. [Amalia] El departamento en el que estaba, que era el de música, era muy insensible. Intentaban expulsar a la gente. Así que si no puedes manejar esto, entonces tienes que salir. Así que fracasé. [Audiodescripción] Una toma aérea del centro de El Paso. [Amalia] Me mudé a El Paso para ir a la escuela de El Paso Community College y me encontré con el centro más increíble para estudiantes con discapacidades. Me ayudaron mucho con la parte de aumentar tu autoestima para saber que puedes lograrlo. Que tal vez te lleve más tiempo, sea cual sea el tiempo que te lleve, ese es tu proceso. Más tarde, cuando mejoré en la toma de apuntes, se abrió un puesto de tutora y me lo ofrecieron, y finalmente me convertí en la tutora mejor pagada, lo que fue realmente genial. [Audiodescripción] Vista aérea de un puente que se cierne sobre la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México. [Amalia] Hay personas con discapacidad en la frontera, migrantes con discapacidad. Hay personas que presentan discapacidades previamente y también hay personas que sufren accidentes en su viaje para migrar. Pierden una pierna o se quedan paralizados al saltar, pasan por muchas cosas. El tráfico de personas es real y ocurren muchas cosas horribles, horribles, horribles. [Audiodescripción] Un muro de cadenas reforzadas y alambre de espino, un todoterreno de la patrulla fronteriza vigila la entrada. [Amalia] Hay gente que queda con problemas de salud mental y traumas y estrés postraumático. Desgraciadamente, el Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas y la Policía Militar, así como mucha de la gente de las aduanas, no hablan de las personas discapacitadas y de las discapacidades que viven quienes cruzan. [Audiodescripción] Multitud de personas cruzando un puente vallado. [Amalia] Porque eso sería una forma de ver a los migrantes bajo una luz compasiva. Quiero decir, no he visto que la gente o los medios de comunicación vean a los migrantes como personas, como seres humanos. [Audiodescripción] Amalia actuando en el exterior; un niño pequeño se balancea suavemente en una hamaca. [Amalia] Crecí en una época en la que era muy discriminatorio ser discapacitado de cualquier forma. Y me ha costado mucho trabajo, mucho trabajo, cambiar la cinta en mi cabeza de no puedo hacer esto a hay una manera de hacerlo y sólo tienes que encontrarla. [Audiodescripción] El muro fronterizo de metal oxidado que atraviesa el desierto. [Amalia] Y si somos capaces de entender dónde tendemos a sufrir o tener problemas, entonces podemos realmente crecer a partir de eso. [Narrador] Relatos de la frontera, producido por Arizona Disability Law Center y Rooted in Rights. Financiado por Borealis Philanthropy. FIN DE LA TRANSCRIPCIÓN

[Narrador] "Relatos de la frontera", historias de personas con discapacidad que viven en la frontera Estados Unidos - México. [Audiodescripción] Un escenario de paisajes áridos y ciudades. Allí, una mujer con pelo corto y gafas es entrevistada en remoto sobre un fondo virtual de cactus. Es doblada al español por una actriz de doblaje. [Alisha Vasquez] Mi nombre es Alisha Vásquez. Soy de Tucson, Arizona. Soy Tucsonense de quinta generación. Lo que significa que mi familia ha ocupado estas tierras que han sido históricamente cuidadas por los Tahanates, los Yoemíes y los apaches y mi familia ha estado aquí desde 1880. [Audiodescripción] Un mapa monocromático de Norteamérica se amplía para mostrar una línea fronteriza roja entre Tucson y la vecina Altar. [Alisha] Mi bisabuelo Adolfo Vásquez nació en Altar Sonora que está a unas dos horas al sur de Tucson. La línea que existe entre Estados Unidos y México no existía cuando él nació. [Audiodescripción] Fotografía del muro fronterizo de hierro rojo que atraviesa el desierto. Un cactus alto en primer plano. [Alisha] Básicamente no era la frontera como la entendemos hoy hasta aproximadamente 1994 y empezamos a ver esta fortificación de nuestra frontera sur con México. [Audiodescripción] Una vista aérea de Tucson extendiéndose hacia las áridas montañas. Luego pasa un tranvía frente a un centro de la ciudad. [Alisha] Al igual que la mayoría de las ciudades de su tamaño, Tucson está atravesando este increíble auge de la gentrificación, que está desplazando y poniendo precio a la gente que ha estado aquí. La gente indígena, la gente sin dinero y, por supuesto, los discapacitados entran en esa categoría de desechables. Así que el centro de la ciudad en el que creció mi abuelo y que mi familia ayudó a crear, está pasando por esta inmensa ola de demolición y construcción de nuevo sin los cuerpos marrones y negros que estaban allí. [Audiodescripción] Alisha está sentada en una alfombra jugando con una niña pequeña. [Alisha] En este momento me identifico como una mamá Crip Chicana. Soy la orgullosa madre de una niña de tres años llamada Athena. [Audiodescripción] Alisha en la cocina con Athena. Muletas apoyadas en la encimera. [Alisha] Nací con la pierna izquierda corta y me han operado casi veinte veces para, entre comillas, "corregir" mi pierna corta, por lo que estoy en silla de ruedas y uso muletas desde los cinco años. [Audiodescripción] Alisha está sentada fuera de su pequeña casa de ladrillo tecleando en un portátil a la sombra. [Alisha] Cuando empecé la universidad esto me dio un nuevo par de gafas con las que entender mi vida. Siendo de Tucson, fui la primera persona de mi familia en conseguir una beca en la Universidad de Arizona, donde me sentí como una completa intrusa. Sentirme extraña como persona pobre, sentirme extraña como chicana, sentirme extraña como mujer, todas esas cosas se cruzaron, pero fue aquí donde realmente empecé a verme a través de los ojos de Crip. Y diría que todavía estaba tratando de imitar la mentalidad súper Crip que creo que muchos de nosotros tenemos. Creo que eso fue parte de mi empuje como "Voy a ser un éxito". "Voy a ir a la universidad para salir de la pobreza", "No voy a quejarme porque otras personas lo tienen peor". Creo que eso, para muchas personas discapacitadas, nos estanca en en llevar a cabo y hacer cosas que en realidad acaban perjudicándonos física, espiritual y emocionalmente. [Audiodescripción] Alisha utiliza muletas para caminar junto a su marido mientras Athena pedalea una bicicleta delante. [Alisha] No fue hasta que, yo diría que tenía unos treinta y tres años y realmente quería ser madre, que finalmente dije "Sabes qué, mi cuerpo es diferente", y empecé a honrarlo y empecé a desaprender las nociones capitalistas neoliberales de lo que es el éxito, y empecé a desaprender el ser súper crip. Y eso significó, ya sabes, renunciar a muchas de las identidades que creía que definían quién era yo. [Audiodescripción] Alisha usa muletas para moverse por el centro de Tucson. [Alisha] Cuando quedé embarazada se me hizo más difícil caminar. Definitivamente, físicamente no voy a ser nunca lo que era hace cuatro años, pero tampoco echo de menos no querer ser eso nunca más. Y así desaprender esos mecanismos de afrontamiento que creo que muchas mujeres, especialmente las mexicano-americanas, mantienen para poder sobrevivir. Son mecanismos de supervivencia que mi madre me dio, pero desde la perspectiva de una persona sin discapacidad, así que desaprenderlos como madre chicana crip, me ha llevado al punto en el que puedo entender por qué soy como soy, por qué la sociedad es como es, pero también me ha dado el conocimiento y el poder de ser muy fiel a mí misma y eso ha sido, creo, la experiencia más liberadora de mi vida. [Audiodescripción] Flores de papel cuelgan de un techo de paja tradicional. Luego, Alisha recorre una exposición del museo. [Alisha] Entonces, el museo de Herencia e Historia México-Americana fue fundado en marzo de 2019 y yo fui nombrada codirectora en febrero de 2022, y espero aportar mi experiencia como educadora de secundaria, preparatoria y universidad, así como de activista comunitaria que honra mucho la historia del lugar, la herencia del lugar y la cultura del lugar. Quiero crear un momento en el que la gente pueda desaprender todas las narrativas coloniales, todas las metanarrativas con las que nos han alimentado, para entender que ellos mismos no tienen que creer lo que les dicen los medios de comunicación, lo que les dicen los políticos e incluso lo que les dicen sus familiares. Creo que ese es mi papel como educadora, crear estos espacios en los que la gente pueda hablar y pensar un poco más críticamente sobre lo que es la frontera. [Audiodescripción] Alisha se sienta sonriendo. Su barbilla descansa sobre sus muletas. Al fondo, una vista panorámica de la soleada Tucson. [Narrador] Relatos de la frontera, producido por Arizona Disability Law Center y Rooted in Rights. Financiado por Borealis Philanthropy. FIN DE LA TRANSCRIPCIÓN

[Narrador] "Relatos de la frontera", historias de personas con discapacidad que viven en la frontera Estados Unidos - México. [Audiodescripción] Un escenario de paisajes áridos y ciudades. Luego, un hombre con gafas de sol y auriculares es entrevistado a distancia sobre el fondo de un mapa. Es doblado al español por un actor de doblaje. [Daniel] Hola, me llamo Daniel Martínez y soy de Brownsville, Texas. Me identifico como un hombre chicano. Tengo 31 años. Soy educador y mentor. Participo en diferentes programas que trabajan con familias de estudiantes con discapacidades. Me gusta tocar música, bailar y hacer arte. [Audiodescripción] Foto de Daniel desde atrás caminando con un bastón al lado de un niño pequeño. [Daniel] Hace seis meses fui padre, así que mucha de la música que toco y escucho está orientada a los niños y mi bebé se divierte mucho. [Audiodescripción] Un mapa monocromático de América del Norte se amplía para mostrar una línea fronteriza roja entre Brownsville y Matamoros. [Daniel] Nací y me crié en Brownsville, Texas. Mi familia viene de Matamoros, México, y estas son ciudades fronterizas. Ciudades fronterizas, significa que puedo vivir lo mejor de ambos mundos, de una manera u otra. Mi mujer y mi hijo nacieron en Matamoros, y voy y vuelvo con bastante frecuencia. [Audiodescripción] Tramos de un río se curvan a través de una ciudad baja salpicada de frondosos árboles. [Daniel] Brownsville, Texas, es un lugar muy tranquilo. La mayoría somos hispanos. Como individuo ciego, tengo grandes expectativas para mi comunidad. Por desgracia, no siempre es el lugar más accesible. Sin embargo, estoy descubriendo que, al comunicarme con los líderes de la comunidad, están prestando atención, y quiero involucrarme más para marcar la diferencia en mi comunidad. [Audiodescripción] Un cruce de calles de un pequeño pueblo. Luego, un mercado esquinero con vibrantes carteles pintados a mano en español. [Daniel] Matamoros es un lugar hermoso, no visualmente, sino culturalmente. La música, la comida y la gente, son bastante atractivas, pero podría decirte que espero mucho menos de Matamoros que de Brownsville. [Audiodescripción] Una foto de una bandera mexicana ondeando en un edificio estatal. [Daniel] México tiene leyes no discriminatorias. Sin embargo, a las personas con discapacidad no se les conceden esos derechos. [Audiodescripción] Una mujer en silla de ruedas junto al alto muro fronterizo de hierro. [Daniel] Es como si no existieran. Y eso es bastante lamentable. Pero cuando salgo, la gente es bastante respetuosa, y eso es lo que me gusta, que no están obligados a no discriminarme, pero normalmente no lo hacen. [Audiodescripción] Multitud de personas con máscaras forman filas entre sólidas vallas. [Daniel] A inicios de 2021, empecé a preguntar a los funcionarios de mi ciudad qué estaban haciendo para conseguir vacunas para las personas con discapacidad, y escuché grillos. Luego supe de una organización, Down By The Border. [Audiodescripción] Página web de Down By The Border, con el lema "Una asociación que ayuda a los niños con necesidades especiales". [Daniel] Estaban haciendo lo mismo. Preguntaban a la ciudad por qué las personas con discapacidad no recibían servicios. Cuando me puse en contacto con la organización, enseguida me reclutaron para formar parte de su programa de divulgación. Y es lamentable que la ciudad dijera básicamente que no tenía la mano de obra necesaria para llegar a las personas con discapacidad. Down By The Border dio un paso adelante y prestó ese servicio. Pero en realidad, la ciudad debería haberse encargado de ello. [Audiodescripción] Foto de Daniel de pie con un bastón blanco y con traje y corbata. [Daniel] Las personas con discapacidad no forman parte de la conversación cuando se habla de situaciones en la frontera. Me gustaría que la narrativa relativa a las discapacidades mejorara. La forma de mejorarla sería que la gente de ambos lados de la frontera fuera consciente de las necesidades de las personas con discapacidad. [Narrador] Relatos de la frontera, producido por Arizona Disability Law Center y Rooted in Rights. Financiado por Borealis Philanthropy. FIN DE LA TRANSCRIPCIÓN

Transcript of "Faces of Solitary: Joseph" produced by Avid and Rooted in Rights JOSEPH: My name is Joseph Roberts. I'm a prisoner here in the Department of Corrections. It's been five- like, it’s going on almost six years. So it's been five years and counting. They're not going to let me out of the hole. They never gonna let me out the hole. They’re never going to let me out the hole because I have behavioral problems. I wasn't like that when I was on mainline. I think that's important to say. I was not like that. [Audio Description] At the end of a hallway. Joseph, in a blue smock and handcuffs, is escorted by four correctional officers who press him to his knees. (JOSEPH): When we are struggling, then they throw us in the hole and then we get infracted. And then as a result of the infraction they say, “Oh, you lost your points and now you're maxed out.” I'm treated like an animal. It's like- it makes me feel like something’s wrong with me. And then they’ve got two officers escorting you. I mean, is it really that necessary? Two officers? You’re already cuffed up. [Audio Description] Joseph, now with leg cuffs is walked down the hallway by two correctional officers. Two more follow with waist restraints. (JOSEPH): It is torture it’s psychological torture. It can be physical torture, too, because you have panic attacks and it starts to just press on your body. It is every day, all day. And honestly, I have not seen them really make any changes. They need to focus on the mentally ill guys like myself, because we- there's times when we simply can't help it. They need to stop punishing us for infractions that are attributed. They need to have our mental health involved with it. They don't have that right now. They say they do, but they don’t. I'm telling you. They say they do, they don’t. Legislators, you guys see this, Please make a change. We're people. I'm just like you. Even though I'm like, I'm going through a hard time. You know, We're supposed to be getting rehabilitated. How am I being rehabilitated at this point? I'm in here rotting. Rotting. This doesn't serve any justice. This is- this is a systemic failure. Like, for real. Yeah.

Transcript of "Advocacy Video Series - Part 1" produced by Rooted in Rights ALLEXA: Do you have a story to share but you don't know where to start? Hi, I'm Allexa from Rooted in Rights, and we tell disability stories by and for disabled people. I'm a White woman with brown hair, and I'm wearing yellow heart-shaped glasses. We're going to be sharing a series with you all, about how to make your own advocacy video. There's lots of different ways that you can share stories. You can share it in a podcast, you can write a letter to a legislator, but at Rooted and Rights, we mainly do it using video stories, so we want to share tips and tools with you all for how you can do that too. Storytelling can be a really effective advocacy tool because it allows you to connect your personal experience with larger systemic issues. For folks with disabilities like me and my team, oftentimes the stories told about us are wrong, and being able to share your own story is an opportunity to change the narrative. You are the expert of your own experience and your story is important. So if you want to know how to structure a story, how to script it, how to film it using your mobile phone, how to edit with some free editing tools, and how to make all of that content accessible, follow our series, and we're going to show you how. Check out our existing stories at RootedInRights.org /Storytellers, and follow us for the rest of the advocacy video series. End of transcript.

"The Right to be Rescued" produced by Rooted in Rights [rising music, slow guitar strumming] [audio description]: Ocean waves crash towards camera, and recede, partially covering the lens. ADRIEN: No disasters are natural. When you know in advance who is likely to be the most harmed by a disaster and you don't do anything about it, then that is a choice. It's about whose lives are more valuable and which ones aren't as valuable. [NARRATOR]:Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans 2005. [audio description]: Aerial view of flooded neighborhoods, with water nearly up to the roofs. JEANNE: People with disabilities did definitely get stuck here, many people died...which was horrendous and should never happen. RICKII: No one knew what to do for the city in general, let alone a population of people who are normally overlooked. [audio description]: A woman on the street after the storm speaks to a news camera. KATRINA SURVIVOR: They’re not doing nothing. They're not telling us nothing, they’re not doing nothing. We've been out here...look at all these old people...they out here without their medication...they're in wheelchairs. We need help, sir, we really need help! [audio description]: A bridge full of people escaping the storm, including a man using a wheelchair. ADRIEN: It is foreseeable that people with disabilities are going to have a harder time evacuating, they're going to have a harder time receiving information about the disaster. [audio description]: A man sleeps in a wheelchair, alone at the side of a river. An older woman is helped by a stranger, while a man in a wheelchair slumps over. ADRIEN: That's essentially a choice, saying that we as a society are okay with people with disabilities not surviving, or suffering much more so than people without disabilities in the event of a disaster. [audio description]: View from underwater, sunlight shines through the surface. RICKII: I don't to be overlooked in that way. We're already overlooked in so many other things but for emergencies, everybody should be included in the plan properly. JEANNE: People have a right to be rescued, so that they don't perish just because they have a disability. [audio description]: Water rushes towards camera. [NARRATOR]: The Right to be Rescued. [slow piano music] [NARRATOR]: Nearly half a million people with disabilities lived in the counties and parishes affected by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Source: Centers for Disease Control 2006. JEANNE: My name is Jeanne Abadie and I work for The Advocacy Center, which is the Protection and Advocacy (P&A) organization in Louisiana. In 2005, New Orleans had nothing special for anybody to be rescued, it was just: Get out of town! So, of course, many people could not get out of town either because of disability, they had a family member with a disability or they had no money. [audio description]: Houses destroyed by the storm. JEANNE: More affordable, medium income, to low income areas of the city were hit the hardest. People in poverty have a harder time getting out, and it just so happens that there's a large percentage of people with disabilities that live in poverty. [NARRATOR]: Rickii Ainey, Disability Rights Advocate. RICKII: You have to think about every single aspect of life. I think a little bit more than most people who can jump in their car and pack their kids up and just drive off. You can't do that. You have to see who's going to take you, where you're gonna go, how you're gonna get there. Someone may just have a physical disability like myself, but then you may have someone who is ill with cancer, and you may have someone with asthma, like you have to think of all those types of things. [audio description]: Spanish moss blows in the wind. Earl Robicheaux, Hurricane Katrina survivor. EARL: My name is Earl Robicheaux, I live in Berwick, Lousiana. [audio description]: Earl sits along at his kitchen table, smoking a cigarette. Earl sits in his living room. EARL: I was diagnosed with Burkitt's lymphoma in July of 2005, and eventually placed in Charity Hospital in New Orleans, and then Katrina hit August 29th. I was placed in a special isolation room and that was to prevent infection. The air condition is very low, usually they keep it around 50, 55, to reduce bacteria counts. Hopefully the antibiotics will work. If they don't work, you'll just die. [audio description]: Aerial shot of flooded New Orleans. EARL: It was when the levees broke and the water came that the problems really started occurring. The generators were in the basement, so they got flooded and of course we had no power as a result. So I went from a room that was like 55 degrees, to a room that was like 115 [degrees]. within say, three hours. The only way I could think of surviving the whole thing was to strip down to my underwear and just lay in the bed very still. I was on a gravity drip IV, and I just laid there for five days and watched helicopters fly around the building. So, we were the last, probably the last hospital to be evacuated on day five. First responders were great...it's just that they came there five days later. I feel lucky, I knew it was kinda bad...but I didn't know it was really, really that desperate, you know, for so many people. [audio description]: Aerial footage of houses flooded to their rooftops. RICKII: When we left and we saw the devastation that was going on... there's no way, I know I wouldn't have been able to survive that. I lived in New Orleans East, I stayed on the second floor of my apartment. No one would have been able to come to rescue me because the water had hit so fast that, it was, people who were back there were just stuck. JEANNE: I have a good friend who died, who was on a, who uses a wheelchair and, and was on an overpass for days. [audio description]: Hundreds of people waiting for rescue on an overpass. An old photo of Alene Bonds sitting in her wheelchair, smiling. JEANNE: She didn't die there, but she ended up with complications. She probably died about six months later. It was horrible for many. For people with disabilities, the impact is greater. PAM: My name is Pam Minning, and I used to live in New Orleans. [audio description]: Old photos of Benilda "Benny" Caixeta. PAM: I met Benny when I was about nineteen, 20 years old, the first day that we met was actually in an Italian class and a very sweet voice, she said: “Hi, my name's Benilda, but my friends call me Benny.” and after that she was always Benny, and she was always my friend. She enjoyed life, you know...she loved chocolates and coffee and smoking her cigarettes. [laughs] Benny had a rare form of muscular dystrophy, she used an electric wheelchair. She had no use of her two lower legs, there was no strength in them. One of her arms, she had partial use out of and the other arm she had pretty good strength in. But then as the years progressed, she was losing some of the strength. She could cook. She always lived, of course, on the first floor apartment, she had a shower that she could go into. So joy of life and independence were the two most important things for her personally. She wanted other people with disabilities to have comfortable lives, to make sure that they were protected, that people didn't take advantage of them. She volunteered with a bunch of disability rights organizations. Anything that she could do to get involved, and give back. [audio description]: Powerful wind and rain blow against trees. PAM: She had decided that she was going to evacuate. She had called a company that was supposed to come and get her, and she said that they were going to take her to the Hyatt. I did not get a phone call from her that day, and at first I thought maybe she got busy, who knows why, but I thought well I'm gonna try and call her. [audio description]: Powerful wind and rain continues. PAM: I said, “Benny, What are you doing still there?!” She said, “Pam, they've abandoned me” she said, “Yes, I spoke to the driver,” and I said, “what, why didn't he come and pick you up?” She said, “he told me ‘I can't come and get you, I've got my own family to worry about.’ ” and he hung up on her. The police told Benny that they would take her to the Superdome. They did not want to take her wheelchair or her physical assistant. She physically could not have gotten by without the help of someone and without her wheelchair, she couldn't, she couldn’t have made it. [audio description]: A deserted street on a clear day. PAM: Storm passed, everything seemed okay...I called, and she let out a huge sigh of relief, and we started talking and just kind of relaxing...then all of the sudden, she said that she heard something, she goes, “Wait, I hear something.” and she goes, “Oh my God, water's coming in.” and I could just hear this panic in her voice, and then all of the sudden the phone line cut out. [audio description]: Underwater view looking up at the sunlight. [tense piano music] PAM: I tried calling on her cell phone, I tried all during the day and I could not get through. Her physical assistant called here and said when she last left her, she was in water up to her neck. And that Benny handed her her cell phone and her address book and said, “Call Pam, call the others and tell them I'm dead. There's no reason for two of us to drown.” [audio description]: An aerial view of ruined houses with the water level reaching the rooftop. PAM: Now it's sadness, but for about three years it was anger. It shouldn't happen. [audio description]: Pamphlet with text that reads, "Benilda Caixeta 1954-2005." Sunset over a lake with a ruined pier.

"On the Outs" produced by Rooted in Rights [NARRATOR]: AVID Prison Project - Amplifying Voices of Inmates with Disabilities Eldorado AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A young man sits in a shaded area of a park. He wears glasses and has two braids that fall beneath his shoulders. ELDORADO: My name is Eldorado Fleetwood Cadillac Brown. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Shot of Eldorado existing a white van in handcuffs. (ELDORADO): Today we are in the East Central side of Spokane, in Liberty Park, celebrating my release! Celebrating the day that I did nine years plus in prison, and today's my first day out. [NARRATOR]: Kara AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Fencing and razor wire guard a prison campus. A corrections officer talks to Kara, a woman with long gray hair standing in front of a prison cell. DOC STAFF: This is what's gonna happen, Miss Moser. KARA: What about my meds and the medical equipment I was promised? DOC STAFF: We're gonna have the officer go through the process with you. KARA: Okay. DOC STAFF: You can ask him that question, okay? KARA: Okay, thank you. (DOC STAFF): Yeah. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Kara ways goodbye to inmates offscreen. (INMATES): Bye Kara! Nice to meet you! [NARRATOR]: Tyrone [Intercoms broadcasting in background] AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Shot of Tyrone, a tall man with broad shoulders, who uses a white cane as he pushes through a doorway. TYRONE: From what I understand, they're gonna give me a bus ticket, they're gonna give me a housing voucher, and they gonna give me the phone card, and um, I'll be taken to Pasco, Washington. And from Pasco, I'll board a bus that'll take me to Seattle... [NARRATOR]: On the Outs - ReEntry for Inmates with Disabilities Eldorado 26 Days Before Release AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Spools of razor wire line the perimeter of Monroe Correctional Complex in Monroe, Washington. Eldorado speaks from a holding cell. [chirping birds] ELDORADO: Today is a lock-down day, so that means I'll be stuck inside of a cell about as big as the room that I'm in now, maybe a little bigger 'cause of the bed, for the whole day without being able to come out or shower or use the phone or anything like that. It's like solitary confinement, basically. They don't understand that placing me in the hole exacerbates my mental illness to a whole different degree. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A professional woman types in an office. ANNA: My name is Anna Guy, and I'm a staff attorney with Disability Rights Washington, on the AVID Prison Project, which stands for Amplifying Voices of Inmates with Disabilities. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Shots of Anna and the AVID prison team monitoring various prisons. ANNA: We set out to determine whether or not there were barriers to reentry specific to people with disabilities, and Eldorado Brown is one of the three people that we followed through the reentry process. Most prisoners face reentry at some point, once they've completed their prison sentence, and knowing that reentry is difficult for everyone, the AVID Prison Project felt that it was likely that it was more difficult for people with disabilities, just due to some of the challenges that people with disabilities face with respect to getting accommodations, and accessing the services they might need. [NARRATOR]: Kara 12 Days Before Release AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Kara is interviewed from inside a holding cell at Washington Corrections Center for Women. (INTERVIEWER): Let's start real easy. Can you tell me your name and where we are today? KARA: Kara Moser, and I'm at WCCW. I had neurosurgery because I had avian brain tumors, and once I got out, a doctor gave me an MRI and I was diagnosed with bilateral hip surgery. I've had my hip replaced here. So I was in the hospital for, I don't even know how long, 'cause the people that are around, weren't-- those people that were around me then, aren't around me now. [Kara cries] KARA: I'm sorry, nobody's really talked to me, like, ever cared about really what's going on, you know? ANNA: Kara has-- reported to have a number of disabilities, and I think that it was challenging for Kara. I think she had a lot of hard time in prison. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Shot of Kara walking down a hallway in prison, with some difficulty. ANNA: I think that it's hard for people who don't have experience with people with disabilities to be compassionate and be patient, and really see the underlying issue, and not just address the immediate emotion that's being expressed. [NARRATOR]: Tyrone 103 Days Before Release TYRONE: My name is Tyrone Gathings and we're in Coyote Ridge Correctional Facility, which is located in Connell, Washington. I have a vision disability. I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, RP. I was diagnosed with this back in 1979. I do have some vision, but my vision has gradually been taken away. When I first got here to Coyote Ridge it was a challenge for me. I used to go in the other units because I would get lost, you know, I mean I would go inside other peoples' cells because I would get lost. I spend a lot of my time in my cell because it's really hard, especially for somebody with a vision disability. ELDORADO: You know, me not being able to see my daughter, or me not being able to communicate with family, friends, or loved ones as I once did, it created a sense of severe depression that led me to find a release. I needed to find a release. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Shot of Eldorado's scarred wrist with several fresh cuts. ELDORADO: Doctors say that I suffer from nonsuicidal self-injury, NSSI, and that means that I like to cut on myself without the thought of suicide, and I engage in self-harm without the intentions of actually dying. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Shot of Eldorado's other wrist, also covered in scars and several new wounds. ELDORADO: A lot of people in this situation feel like they have no voice, they feel like they have nobody that would actually understand them, whether you're incarcerated or you're in segregation. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A metal door labeled with the word 'segregation' slides open. KARA: In here I'm locked down 23 hours, but they consider it for my safety, because if you have any kind of suicidal background, which I do, I have five suicide attempts, right... and um, yeah, I've gone through it. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: The interviewer asks Kara if she receives counseling for her suicide attempts. (INTERVIEWER): Did, do they give you counseling for the suicide? KARA: No, uh uh. I never thought of that. I mean, prison is, like, not that hands-on, I mean this is punishment. ANNA: We talk about prison as being this-- it's for punishment, but also there's an expectation that people are being rehabilitated. And the prison has some responsibility over the services the person receives, both in the prison and making those connections out in the community, to make sure that they're successful, and they get the tools they need to find jobs and housing, and be productive members and safe members of our community. TYRONE: No one's here has really done anything to help me get something in concrete as far as my transition back out into the community. They haven't decided where they want to send me. They don't know if they're gonna send me to Cowlitz County, Pierce County, or King County. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Shot of Tyrone walking through a prison hallway as inmates move aside, making way for him and his white cane. TYRONE: And I'm real familiarized with the Pierce County area and the King County area. I know my way around, I use the bus service there, I know not only my mental health doctors but my normal physical doctors, you know, I know where their office is, I know how to ride the bus, the public bus service and get there. I don't know anything about that in Cowlitz County. ANNA: When inmates release, generally the Department requires-- it's a requirement that inmates release to their county of origin, which is where they committed their first offense. That's sort of the first hurdle that people have to get through, is figuring out what they have to support them in that county of origin. ELDORADO: I have 62 criminal charges out of Spokane County, before I was 21. I was involved in a lot of street life activity, a lot of negativity, a lot of the drug game, a lot of gangs. I asked them to change out of Spokane County to Snohomish County, to be able to better adjust. My mom died, my dad's dead. There's nothing in Spokane but family members that smoke crack cocaine. ANNA: One of the other elements of reentry is setting up the supports and services that a person needs once they're on the outside, so that they can be successful, and that's where work release really could come into play. KARA: Work release is when you go and you-- it's still considered a prison facility, and you're able to go work but you report back in. And you know, you're theirs, right, for while you're there. And then you're able to save up a little bit of money. They take a percentage. I asked to go to work release. In my county it's Radcliff, and I did-- I've only been there once, but I did really well there. And they said, "No". TYRONE: Everybody who I arrived here with on the chain bus, they're all employed, all of 'em. If I had my ability to do things as a normal person would, I would've been to work release. If I was at work release right now, I would be-- I would be going over to the vocational rehab center for the blind, I would reconnect with the various resources I have out there. That little buffer before the streets, that really helps. They sent my information in and the work releases have denied me. You know, I'm kind of like in a bad situation right now. ELDORADO: I made it 22 days last time so, I mean, 30 days would be better. You know, if I can make it 30 days this time, I think that that'll be a goal. ANNA: That's not what we want people's reentry success to be. That's not what we're striving for.

“Bottom Dollars Movie Chapter 09” produced by Rooted in Rights [NARRATOR]: Bottom Dollars [quiet electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Chapter nine - "The chance to rise." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Stephanie Woodward waits for the next question from the interviewer. (INTERVIEWER): So, what am I missing? What haven't I asked you about that's important? STEPHANIE: How do we change it? AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Justin Young speaks to a camera at a protest of Goodwill. JUSTIN: Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act says that people with disabilities can be paid sub-minimum wage. We don't feel that's right. We feel our rights should be honored, just like every other population in this nation. JENSEN: I'm Jensen Caraballo. I'm an activist for disability rights. Protesting isn't something that we do first. We always take other advocacy avenues. Once we know that we're not getting anywhere, we organize actions. You get in people's faces and you let them know this isn't right, we're not gonna stand for this. No pun intended. [Jensen laughs] AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Protesters hold up signs with slogans like, "Sub-minimum equals subhuman." JENSEN: 14(c) certificate under the Fair Labor Standards Act says that people with disabilities are less than everyone else, and we don't deserve to get paid like everyone else, and that's wrong. We have the power to make that change. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Painting on the side of a building in Tiffin, Ohio. Barbara Corner from Disability Rights Ohio. BARBARA: If somebody in a sheltered workshop or their parent or guardian wishes to challenge their wages, they can file a request with the Department of Labor. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Pamela shops for supplies. BARBARA: We decided that we wanted to follow that process. PAMELA: Judges ruled on our behalf, and he feels the same way we do, that we're being mistreated. I make minimum wage now, and I'm happy about that. I wanna be able to move up to where I'm gettin' paid really good. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Pamela threads a needle. PAMELA: I'd like to go back to California. Not sure how much a plane ticket costs nowadays to go there. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Jim Larson from Morningside. JIM: I really had a celebration of closing the sheltered workshop, it was the second-best day of my career. The first one would be sending a letter back to the Federal Department of Labor and saying, "I choose not to renew this certificate." In 2014 we stopped paying sub-minimum wages. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Brendan cleans dishes at work. AMY: New Hampshire was the first in the nation to eliminate sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Charles Biebl walks with his white cane. CHARLES: By the year 2020, Maryland is supposed to phase out paying sub-minimum wages to people with disabilities, you know, blind people and such. And that's a good thing. STEPHANIE: A minimum wage is just that, the minimum any worker should receive. [atmospheric music] [NARRATOR]: 48 states still allow sub-minimum wage. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Gloria Marrero uses sign language. GLORIA (VIA ASL): Oh, yeah, I want to earn more money. Well sure, I'd like to have a little bit more money. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Gloria smiles. Joe plays a bell during church. LE'RON: After I got the check of $2.50 for working in a hot workshop with hot, big fans, I said, "I quit. I can go find me somethin' else to do." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Theresa watches Dexter work. CHERYL: If individuals are given the proper services and supports, and proper assistive technology, the sky is the limit for many, many individuals. (HUGH): I make $9.59 an hour. Now I get four weeks' vacation. I get paid for my vacation. SARA: I wanna move up more at Children's, in the receiving department. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Le'Ron drives his wheelchair through his office. LE'RON: I went to school. I got my degree. I work with Disability Rights Mississippi. I'm a advocate for people with disabilities. TRUST: I've been working for two years, had multiple-- had great internships and jobs. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Trust holds up his paycheck proudly. TRUST: And it's not just for me, it's not just for me, Trust Jones, who lives in Mississippi. It's to every state. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Joe bags popcorn. Sara at the subway. (TRUST): To the northeast. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Dexter pushes carts. (TRUST): The southwest, the midwest. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Pamela sews. TRUST: I may have a disability, but I can still work. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Photo of President Roosevelt in a wheelchair. (ROOSEVELT): I am still convinced that the American people continue to insist on sincere respect for the need of all people at the bottom who need to get work. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Sara guiding a horse. (ROOSEVELT): And through work, to get a really fair share of the good things of life. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Andy smiling at the bowling alley. Joe skis towards the camera. (ROOSEVELT): And a chance to save and a chance to rise. [uplifting music] [NARRATOR]: Share the full film in your community. Host a screening. BottomDollarsMovie.com AUDIO DESCRIPTION: End credits roll. [NARRATOR]: Produced and directed by Jordan Melograna Executive Producers David Carlson Mark Stroh Cinematography and editing by Jordan Melograna Associate Producer Tina Pinedo Original music by Catrina Melograna Thank you to those who appeared in the film Malanie Oyer Gloria Marrero Mark Riccobono Cheryl Bates-Harris Pamela Steward Barbara Corner Le'Ron Jackson Charles Biebel Roy Rocha James Meadours Betty Williams Stephanie Woodward Tilman Mitchell Dorothy Mitchell Joan Farish Sara Frost Robin Frost Scott Frost Tanya Hart-Newkirk Susan Kas Jim Larson Hugh Bertolin Dexter Smith Yolanda Sandoval-Nez Theresa Jim Andy Owens Cynthia Owens Adam Henry Joe Steffy E.R. Steffy Ray Steffy Janet Steffy Trust Jones Tiffany Boyte Amy Messer Brendan Welch Liz Duncan Justin Young Jensen Caraballo Sound Editor and Mixer Justin Newton Audio Description Narrator Tina Marie Murray Opening titles designed by Moriah Burton Jordan Melograna Production Assistants Courtney Cole Vanessa Link Rebekah Price Cuquis Robledo Paul Schaver Outreach and promotion by Kearsten Holmdale Tina Pinedo Stacie Siebrecht ASL Interpreter Stuart Tennis SignOn Hearing, Speech & Deafness Center Archival footage provided by Rick Ray/Shutterstock Pond5 Additional footage courtesy of Disability Rights Mississippi The National Federation of the Blind Special thanks The National Disability Rights Network Kansas Disability Rights Center of Kansas Ricky Nichols Mike Burgess Louisburg Cider Mill Snow Creek Ski Resort Jennifer Stratton Sonflower Ringers Beverly Williamson Maryland Chris Danielson The National Federation of the Blind Mississippi Bob Boyte Honda Disability Rights Mississippi Gathering Grounds Coffee Shop La Quinta Inn and Suites Vicksburg Ann Maclaine Shirley Walker New Hampshire Boston Children’s Hospital Brian Becquart Andrea Duggan Disability Rights Center - New Hampshire Giddy Up Farm Julia Freeman-Woolpert One Sky Community Services VPNE New Mexico Native American Disability Law Center Coyote Ridge Jessica Jones Walmart Gallup New York The Center for Disability Rights Elizabeth Forbes Ohio Stacy Brannan-Smith Disability Rights Ohio Michael Kirkman Oregon Michelle Afroso Tara Asai Disability Rights Oregon Powell’s Books Sunset Lanes Washington Heather McKimmie Laurie Schindler Morningside Services Stacie Siebrecht Produced with generous support from Disability Rights Washington Rooted in Rights is the author of this motion picture for the purpose of copyright and other laws. This motion picture is protected pursuant to the provisions of the laws of the United States of America and other countries. Any unauthorized duplication and/or exhibition of this motion picture may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution. Produced by Rooted in Rights End of transcript.

“Bottom Dollars Movie Chapter 08” produced by Rooted in Rights [NARRATOR]: Bottom Dollars [mellow atmospheric music] [NARRATOR]: Chapter eight - "I've got the jersey to prove it." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: The Bob Boyte car dealership in Brandon, Mississippi. Minimum wage $7.25 per hour. TRUST: My name's Trust Jones. I'm from Brandon, Mississippi, and I'm 23 years old. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Trust walks through the dealership to a back office. TRUST: Every time, when I come back here, I always go for one thing. My check. I come here to get my check. Best one ever. BOSS: Hey, Trust. TRUST: Hi. BOSS: How are you doing, sir? TRUST: Pretty good, pretty good. BOSS: Very good. TRUST: Thank you. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Trust receives his paycheck from his boss and coworker. TRUST: Every time I come here, this is what I get. (BOSS): He gets paid! TRUST: Every single time. And I love it, I love it. [boss laughs] TRUST: Best job ever. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Trust proudly holds his check over his head. TRUST: My mom worked, my brother worked, my sisters worked, and I knew I had to put in work. My current job is with Bob Boyte Honda. Last check I got, was 324 bucks. The most money ever. Didn't spend it all. CHERYL: We know that there are people with disabilities going to work, but oftentimes we look at that as, "Oh, isn't that remarkable," or "Isn't that incredible." We need to start to recognize that people with disabilities have skills and talents, and we need to encourage those and support those. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Trust's Manager, Tiffany Boyte. TIFFANY: Trust has not only just gotten a job here, I think he's built a purpose within this dealership. He's given us something that we haven't had. We saw very quickly that he was really good with technology. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Trust sits in his cubicle, looking at a Facebook page on his computer. TRUST: My job was to oversee the Facebook and Twitter pages of Bob Boyte. And it was good. We got a lot of feedback, a lot of feedback from customers, a lot of likes. TIFFANY: It is not charity for us at all. I don't think the dealership would be the same without him. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Concord, New Hampshire. Minimum wage $7.25 per hour. AMY: My name is Amy Messer, I'm the Executive Director at the Disability Rights Center in New Hampshire. Oftentimes, people just simply don't understand that individuals with disabilities bring everything to the workplace that everybody without disabilities brings as well. They bring their skills and their talents, their dedication, their collegiality, and so I think people underestimate, actually, the value of employment for people with disabilities to the employer. [mellow atmospheric music] AUDIO DESCRIPTION: The Quality Cash Market, a local grocery store. Brendan Welch. BRENDAN: My name is Brendan, I am 30 years old, I grew up in Concord, yep. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Brendan clocks in. (BRENDAN): I do the floors, I do the soda cooler, the beer cooler, the dishes, and anything else they want me to do. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Brendan works quickly in different parts of the store. Brendan's manager, Liz Duncan. LIZ: Brendan has a really good approach with people. He takes a lot of pride into what he's doing, and so, when he wants to, and we try give him a little bit more responsibility, he does get really nervous, but we just kind of coach him along, and he really does take responsibility very well. He likes to joke around a lot, which, we all-- we're good with it, you know. BRENDAN: Sometimes people call me a pain in the butt because I can be a pain in the butt. It's all family, they treat me as a family member. AMY: If you talk to employers who have individuals with disabilities employed in their workplace, you're gonna hear a lot of really positive stories. LIZ: I've had several people who have had disabilities come in and ask for a job. And it's not as-- fill out an application. If I know that you're qualified, I'm gonna hire you. BRENDAN: I like the people, I like conversation, and I like to be friendly with everybody. TRUST: It's great, I interact with customers, I talk to the workers. I get paid. I love it. BRENDAN: Sometimes I take my mom out to lunch on Sunday, or I take her out to dinner. TRUST: My favorite team is the Pittsburg Steelers, and I've got the trunks, the jersey, the backpack, and the cap to prove it. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Trust walks back to his desk. TRUST: The internet department. TIFFANY: I could not imagine those two in a sheltered workshop. You wouldn't go do a job that would pay you a dollar on the hour or something like that, because you're worth more. They're worth more. [slow electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Share the full film in your community. Host a screening. BottomDollarsMovie.com End of transcript.

“Bottom Dollars Movie Chapter 07” produced by Rooted in Rights [NARRATOR]: Bottom Dollars [mid-tempo electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Chapter seven - "The Joe-Hawk." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Joe skis down the ski slope. Joe skis by, giving two thumbs up. Joe uses an iPad to speak. JOE (VIA IPAD): My name is Joe Steffy. I own Poppin Joe's Kettle Corn. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A banner reads, "I love Poppin Joe's." Joe dumps the kettle corn popper. (JOE): As a business owner, I must be able to produce every type of popcorn product that I sell and complete the daily business tasks. This includes the weekly deliveries. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Joe places bags of his popcorn on shelves in a small store. JOE: I am always active and love being busy. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Joe looks up from his iPad and gives a thumbs up. Joe plays a bell in his church choir and then plays basketball with E.R. E.R.: My name is E.R., he's my uncle. I live with him and I help take care of him. The Joe-Hawk, yeah, everywhere he goes he'll go like this, and he wants everyone to know that he has a Joe-Hawk. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: E.R. rubs the center of his head in reference to Joe's mohawk. Joe shoots and makes two baskets in a row. The rolling hills of Louisburg, Kansas. Minimum wage $7.25 per hour. JOE: I was 14 years old, my parents and I met with my school transition team. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Ray and Janet Steffy. RAY: And basically what they told us was, "We don't know why we need to set up a plan," and that basically, "Joe has no attention span, he can't keep on task, he probably-- he will never hold a job, so why do we need to make a plan?" AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Photos of Joe as a younger man. JOE: You know the greatest disability there is? It is low expectation. They had no expectations for me. JANET: We were known as parents with great expectations, that were in denial of how serious the disabilities were that we were facing. RAY: This ticked me off, in that I was going to prove to these people my son could work. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Joe pours out popcorn from a kettle. RAY: There was a workshop, and we went in there to observe what they did and that kind of thing. And basically, what we saw in there wasn't what we wanted Joe to go through, and basically not get paid for doing it anyways. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: The Kansas farm. Cattle grazing in the background. (JANET): I grew up on a farm, we milked cows, there were cows there, there were chickens there, and so there was a lot to do. You knew where you fit in. So, I expected that out of my kids. (RAY): We needed to find something that we could do as a family. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Joe, Ray, and E.R. working in the backyard. RAY: We didn't even know what kettle corn was at that time. We went on a cruise to Alaska, and it was in Anchorage, Alaska, on a Saturday during market day, and there was this business there that was popping popcorn. We watched them pop and sell and everything, and there was a variety of jobs within the business. You could pop the corn, you could bag the corn, you could help sell the corn, all those were different phases. Well I thought this would be ideal for Joe, because when he got tired of one, he could move to another one, whichever one he wanted to do. JOE: I learned by watching and would do exactly as I saw it done. RAY: Which comes down to what customized employment is. [NARRATOR]: Customized employment. (RAY): Janet went to classes to learn how to write a business plan. We submitted that to the DD Council in Kansas, which-- at that time they were supporting people starting their own business, so they gave him all new equipment. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Joe making, bagging, and delivering the kettle corn. RAY: And then we went to Social Security through their PASS Plan. They supported the finances of his business by giving him cashflow money to make the business work for an 18-month period of time, and then we also got equipment from the vocational rehab people for a computer and a printer to make labels. And so that's how we got started, and on the fifth day of April in 2005, the business became Joe's business, and he was the sole proprietor of that business, and has been 'til this day. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Photo of Joe proudly holding papers in his hand. RAY: We help manage the business. People say, "Well, how does he do his accounting?" Well, like any other business. If you don't do accounting, then you hire an accountant. So that's what we do, we hire the people that are needed to run specific parts of the business. But basically, Joe is the owner of the business. [soft uplifting music] AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Joe and Ray wear matching tie-dye bandanas as they work at a stand selling popcorn. JOE: Festivals average three weekends each month, April through October. I have several retail outlet stores where I supply products on a weekly basis, as well as internet sales. JANET: Say we're out shopping. Somebody will see him, and they'll say, "Are you Poppin Joe?" And you can just see Joe stands up straighter and gets a big smile, and he knows he's Poppin Joe. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Exterior of Joe's house. (JANET): And the business has given him the opportunity to rent his own place, pay utilities, he buys his own food, he's not on any subsidy for food or housing or utilities. He pays his own way, and then he gets to choose the activities that he likes. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Joe skis to the ski lift. Ray and Janet look on as Joe takes the lift up. (RAY): When we're gone, then the business could go ahead and support him in the same manner. What we would like to see is to bring on a person who would be interested in being a partner in the business, doing the management part of the business, and Joe would keep the capacity that he has as being an owner. (JANET): On a farm, it's a team effort. You all pull together to make it happen. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: In the backyard, the family works together making kettle corn. (JANET): We expected Joe to be a part of it, to do the part he could do, from the very beginning. [slow electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Share the full film in your community. Host a screening. BottomDollarsMovie.com End of transcript.

“Bottom Dollars Movie Chapter 06” produced by Rooted in Rights [NARRATOR]: Bottom Dollars [energetic electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Chapter six - "Yes, there were a lot." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A van drives down a tree-covered street in Portland, Oregon. Minimum wage $10.25 per hour. ANDY (VIA IPAD): My name is Andy Owens. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Andy is in his wheelchair, using an iPad to speak. ANDY: A lot of kids I went to school with went into sheltered workshops when they graduated and left school. I said, "No way for me!" I was not going to go there. I started my job five days after school got out. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Andy smiles and points forward as his assistant pushes his wheelchair. ANDY: I work at Powell's Bookstore. I will have worked there for 15 years in June 2016. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Andy arrives at his workstation among countless shelves of books. CYNTHIA: I am Cynthia Owens, and I am Andy's mom. He had a near-drowning accident, which caused traumatic brain injury. It's also called acquired cerebral palsy because he was so young when he had that happen. He was in a coma for seven months after his accident, and then in the hospital for about two and a half years. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Photo of Andy as a baby, smiling. A tube is attached to his neck. CYNTHIA: The doctors didn't give me very much hope for him. They said, "You know, if he comes out of the coma, or when he comes out of the coma, he'll be a vegetable," and that was the word they used. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Photo of Andy as a young man, smiling. CYNTHIA: And I know all of those doctors are probably retired now, but I'd someday like to just show them what the results of all of that was. ANDY: My mom had a person centered plan done while I was in high school. We came up with all the strengths, gifts, and talents I have. Yes, there were a lot. [NARRATOR]: Person centered plan. CYNTHIA: A person centered plan is when you're really focusing on the individual, you have a facilitator of that person centered plan who knows how to do that. You'd usually try to get a group of people together who know the individual well, who can help create a plan that has a lot of positiveness to the plan, so you're looking for strengths, you're looking for what gifts they bring, you do look at their challenges. ANDY: We narrowed it down to things I might be able to do using switches. We knew I could control my head and that I could use a switch, then we just needed to find a job that I could do requiring a switch. CYNTHIA: With a person centered plan, you've got a list of things that a job developer or a job coach could take with them to really go out there and try to help that individual find a job. They approached Powell's, which-- you know, they went into Powell's, they saw how Powell's scans the books with the barcodes when people buy these, and what they had to do when they were selling them in the store. They talked to them about, "Gosh, we've got this individual who would be really interested in working." ANDY: I am good at my job. Powell's knows I am a dependable employee. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Andy in front of his workstation. His assistant operates the computer. Adam Henry, Andy's assistant. ADAM: I've been working with Andy full time for about a month and a half now. When we're at work, I log him in, read his emails, and then I get his iPad ready 'cause he likes to listen to music while we're working. ANDY: I scan inventory to be shipped to stores for online pickup. ADAM: His head switch comes in right here, he's got a little battery back here that powers his head switches. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Adam points out wires that run from Andy's wheelchair to a computer-controlled conveyor belt. ANDY: When I am processing the books, I use assistive technology to help me do what I cannot do physically. I use sensitive head switches that control my book loader and conveyor belt. The loader puts the books onto the conveyor belt, which brings them to the scanner in front of me. It scans the barcode on the pricing label, I verify the information on the screen while my assistant offloads the books. The books are then taken to the shipping department. CYNTHIA: He saw his older brother and sister go to work at his age, and that's what he wanted, he wanted to go to work. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Andy advances his book loader with his head switch. ANDY: I earn $13.95 an hour. CYNTHIA: Which is considerably higher than minimum wage. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Adam points to a calendar with the number of books for each day. (ADAM): Last year Andy processed 53,758 books. CYNTHIA: I realize that there's a lot of families who may not have opportunity with time to be able to do what we've done. This was not something anybody really taught me, it was something that we really had to go figure out, it was a lot of trial and error. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Cheryl Bates-Harris from National Disability Rights Network. CHERYL: We know how to support people in employment, we know how to get people with significant disabilities jobs, we're just not spending the money on doing it properly. [NARRATOR]: Vocational Rehabilitation. CHERYL: Vocational Rehabilitation gets money specifically to provide services to people with disabilities, so that they can obtain, maintain, or regain employment consistent with their abilities, strengths, interests, and priorities. CYNTHIA: A lot of what we've gotten has been paid for by Vocational Rehabilitation. CHERYL: There's no question that the return on investment for individuals who actually get real jobs and real wages is great. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Andy and his friends at a bowling alley. ANDY: I want to work because I earn a paycheck, buy things, have friends, pay taxes, get a discount on all the books I want, and feel useful. I value my job and know how I lucky I am to have a great job. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A ramp is next to his wheelchair, allowing him to push a bowling ball into the lane. CYNTHIA: I think what Andy has taught me is that I can't hold him back, and that's what I was doing when I didn't think that he could do these things. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: after knocking down nine pins, Andy smiles. [slow electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Share the full film in your community. Host a screening. BottomDollarsMovie.com End of transcript.

“Bottom Dollars Movie Chapter 05” produced by Rooted in Rights [NARRATOR]: Bottom Dollars [atmospheric music] [NARRATOR]: Chapter five - "My mother didn't think I could do it..." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A green lawn in front of the Capitol building in Olympia, Washington. Minimum wage $11.00 per hour. Hugh Bertolin walks down the street. HUGH: I'm Hugh Bertolin, I used to work at Morningside sheltered workshop, I was making less than minimum wage. (INTERVIEWER): And how long did you work at the sheltered workshop? HUGH: About 15, yeah, about 15 years. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A sign reading, "Morningside, Everybody Works Everybody Wins." JIM: My name is Jim Larson, and I'm the CEO of Morningside. Morningside's always been a very successful program, and a very innovative program, but I think, while we say we focus on the individual, early on in our history through sheltered employment, I'm not sure if that's true. A professor at the University of Oregon brought up his students and they did a survey of all of our [people] in sheltered employment. So, 80% of the people wanted to work in the community, and we had about 20% of the people indicated that maybe staying there or something else would have been better for them. First you're kind of shocked, saying, "80%? That's a lot, I was sure more people would wanna be here." But that's the only option they had, and I think that's the other thing with choice, so if you only have one choice, what are your options? What is your exposure to work? You don't have any exposure to work. So, it seems to me that when you have that exposure and that choice, then there's other options than going to a sheltered workshop. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Hugh waits to cross the street. Disability Rights Washington sign. SUSAN: My name is Susan Kas, and I'm a staff attorney at Disability Rights Washington. The whole concept of a sheltered workshop was based on a charitable notion and a notion of giving people opportunities that didn't otherwise exist, and so it has roots that run deep and have been around for several decades. The call to end sub-minimum wage, and to end the practice of sheltered work, is a call that almost universally is to transition, and to phase out this practice. (JIM): Well, 2004 was a real exciting time here at Morningside, it's 'cause we had a celebration on June 24th to close the sheltered workshop, and we called it 'Bridge to the Community celebration’, and so it was a culmination of really a five-year plan to close the sheltered workshop. So out of the 120 people in sheltered employment, we found spots for most everybody. Hugh Bertolin was one of our first people that got placed out of our sheltered workshop program. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Hugh approaches an Albertsons store. HUGH: I was hoping I could be like a courtesy clerk, and then I finally became a courtesy clerk at Albertsons. Morningside got it for me. I like bagging the groceries, I have some friends there who I see, our customers, I see my fellow workers. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Hugh chats with his coworker. (HUGH): I work Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. (INTERVIEWER): How long have you worked there? HUGH: 19 years. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Hugh smiles while standing under the Albertsons sign. JIM: And there's probably eight people or so that didn't make a transition. Of the eight, six people were referred to a community access program, and I think two people decided to retire. And of the six or so people that we found another option for, all of the parents, all of the parents were upset at me. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Mark Riccobono from the National Federation of the Blind. MARK: Parents of people with disabilities, I think, are the group that this subject is hardest for. I feel bad that we have not gotten to them earlier. They have thought the notion that this model of, quote, work, is really the thing that defines what the future can be like for their child. HUGH: Well, my mother didn't think I could do it. But I did. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Hugh bags groceries. JIM: Having somebody sit all day, putting together a nut and a bolt, isn't necessarily a positive thing, in my opinion. Matter of fact, I think oftentimes that had a more detrimental effect on a client than it had a positive effect. 'Cause oftentimes our people didn't wanna be there, they knew it wasn't real work, they weren't getting paid for it, or paid appropriately for it, and it causes a lot of issues. [gentle guitar strumming] AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Desert landscape in Galllup, New Mexico. Minimum wage $7.50 per hour. DEXTER: My name is Dexter Smith. I listen to old country music. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Dexter browses music. DEXTER: Sometimes I like to go to rodeo. That's all I do. I used to be working in a workshop, like buttons, janitorial. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Dexter walks through a dry yard. Downtown Gallup. YOLANDA: My name is Yolanda Sandoval-Nez, and I'm a Senior Advocate with the Native American Disability Law Center. For Navajo especially, is that families aren't well familiar, or I guess you could say they're not educated to where they can guide the kids to different opportunities, but it doesn't mean that they don't love them. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Wide shots of the dry New Mexico landscape. YOLANDA: I think the families did here the best that they can. I was able to go to these sheltered workshops and tell these individuals that you do have rights, you have a right to go and explore. You don't have to stay in a sheltered workshop. Dexter's one I worked with. DEXTER: I work at Walmart, pushing cart. Sometimes helping people. I love my job, it's pretty good. YOLANDA: With sheltered workshops you're kind of held to a level where they think you can't do very much, but I think when Dexter went out in the community, it gave him that opportunity to explore a lot more than when they were kind of left in a sheltered workshop. [atmospheric music] AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Dexter smiles as he drives an electric shopping cart through the parking lot. [NARRATOR]: Supported employment. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Cheryl Bates-Harris from National Disability Rights Network. CHERYL: Supported employment has been around for almost 30 years, and supported employment was a model where you identify an appropriate job and you place the individual on the job and then train them as to how to perform specific tasks for that job, using supports that could include a job coach. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Theresa watches Dexter as he works at Walmart. THERESA: My name is Theresa Jim, I'm the job coach for Dexter Smith. A job coach means the individuals are working out in the community. I have to coach them to monitor and make sure they do their task. He does a really good job, he's a hard-working person, doesn't call in sick, he keeps himself busy, and he likes to help out customers and his coworkers. DEXTER: I get paid every Thursday. Every Thursday, that's when I get paid. Just put it back in the bank for myself, I've got a banking account. JIM: When I brought these business leaders together and talked to them about closing the sheltered workshop, somebody said, "Well, you need to have a sheltered workshop." And these are people that were social workers in the community, and people in the medical profession. "Well, you need a sheltered workshop. What else are they gonna do?" Well, I had to really explain to them that everybody can work. Maybe work isn't a program for somebody, and that's fine, maybe work-- while I think everybody can get a job, there are some people that don't wanna work. If they wanna work, then our job is to find them a job. Last year we placed over 200 people in jobs, which is a huge number. SUSAN: If we want to phase out sheltered work because we don't believe it has a place in our modern economy, then we have to make our modern economy make a place for people with disabilities to work and contribute and earn a living the same way as everyone else. [slow electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Share the full film in your community. Host a screening. BottomDollarsMovie.com

“Bottom Dollars Movie Chapter 04” produced by Rooted in Rights [NARRATOR]: Bottom Dollars [gentle plucking music] [NARRATOR]: Chapter four - "Been down there too long." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A trailer home in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Minimum wage $7.25 per hour. TILLMAN: My name is Tillman Mitchell, and I live in Vicksburg, Mississippi, with my mom and my little brother. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Dorothy holds up a family photo. DOROTHY: My name's Dorothy Mitchell, Tillman's my son. Grew up, real nice kid, graduated and everything from high school. It was after graduation, about, think a couple of months later, they signed him up for Midd West, and they started him out there. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A 14(c) certificate for Midd West. JOAN: My name is Joan Farish, I work at Midd West Industries. It is a sheltered workshop. Participants are actually able to come on site every day, and they work, we recycle paper and plastics. DOROTHY: I said, "Well, that's nice, he'll be able to get out the house, won't have to sit around the house all the time." He find something to do with hisself. TILLMAN: It's okay. (INTERVIEWER): Why is it only okay? AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Tillman closes his eyes and looks down. [Tillman hums contemplatively] TILLMAN: It's just, it's okay. [NARRATOR]: School transition plan. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Cheryl Bates-Harris from National Disability Rights Network. CHERYL: Schools are supposed to develop a transition plan for individuals with disabilities, so that when they exit the school system they either go to work or some other appropriate post-school activities. We know from our work doing sheltered workshop monitoring around the country that most of these individuals go directly from the school system to the sheltered workshop. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Mark Riccobono from the National Federation of the Blind. MARK: As soon as they get ready to graduate, we give them an opportunity through the transition programs to go tour the sheltered workshop and say, "Look at this, this is great." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Stephanie Woodward from the Center for Disability Rights. STEPHANIE: You'll see the richer high schools have so many more resources, and then the poorer areas... What do we do? Oh, sheltered workshop. CHERYL: So their thinking is that if they go to the sheltered workshop, they will get the services and supports that they need there to move into post-school activities. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. What they end up with is a sub-minimum wage job in a segregated setting without the opportunity to talk about real work. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Jackson, Mississippi. LE'RON: My name is Le'Ron Jackson. When I was in the sheltered workshop, they had me bending over, putting clothes in a barrel. I have CP, so I couldn't bend over and then get myself back up. It took me a while to get myself back up, or I had to ask somebody to get me up so I could reposition myself and then pick up some clothing, and then bend back down to put it in the barrel. That's real demeaning. When they matched me up with the workshop, it was supposed to be just for a limited time, but as you can see, some people get stuck. STEPHANIE: Looking at the reality, you will find someone in a sheltered workshop today who's been in that same sheltered workshop for years. So if this is a job training program, I'm not sure how long it takes to train someone, but I think it's a bit excessive. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Tillman's trailer home. TILLMAN: I went, I worked at Midd West 15 years. The first job I had, and I've been down there too long. DOROTHY: So they said they was gonna find him a job, and they did that. (INTERVIEWER): When did they say they were gonna find him a job? DOROTHY: Uh..they started last year, looking for him one. TILLMAN: I went down for my interview, they told me I got a job, and then I liked it. I clean up. Sweep, vacuum the floor, and then wipe down the vending area, pull the trash. And I love it because I like to work out in the community, make good friends, new people, get paid more money, $7.25 an hour. Help my family and them out. [gentle plucking music] AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Tillman vacuuming the floor at a hotel. Timeline shows Tillman's training in a sheltered workshop leading to a part-time job after 15 years. (INTERVIEWER): So why did it take 15 years for Tillman? DOROTHY: I have no idea. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Tillman takes out the hotel's trash. DOROTHY: Wish they would've had started training him in school to do things like this, how to go out and get a job on your own, probably could have gotten one right after. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Tillman wipes down the soda machine. MARK: We've set up a pipeline to sheltered employment that starts at a very young age, where we start working with children with disabilities and telling them how limited they are. STEPHANIE: Well, there's a ton of alternatives. We could start with a transition plan that-- with teachers and parents all getting together and understanding that this person has more value than 25 cents. [cheery bell music] AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A two-story house in South Hampton, New Hampshire. Minimum wage $7.25 per hour. Sara Frost. SARA: I am Sara, I am 23 years old, almost 24. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Sara commutes to work by train early in the morning. (SARA): I'm in the shipping and receiving at the Boston Children's Hospital. When we first get there, we will have our meetings, then we'll start delivering all the packages, all 13 floors. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Sara pulls a cart of boxes through the hallway in fast motion. (SARA): It's super busy all day. It is a tough job, but, doing pretty awesome. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Sara's house. (SCOTT): My name is Scott Frost. ROBIN: I'm Robin Frost, we are Sara's parents, yep. We live in this little town on the seacoast of New Hampshire, which you could basically throw a rock and hit Massachusetts. Though Sara was in this community, she wasn't part of it, she didn't have any friends, she wasn't-- she was never picked for any teams, she-- small school, everyone would get off the bus to go to a birthday party, and she was still sitting on the school bus, and, she got that, and granted, Sara has more advantages, the end of the day, she does have disabilities. I felt that she deserved more, and I could do better. (TONYA): My name's Tonya Hart Newkirk, and I am the PDMS Account Manager for One Sky, and I also am a Service Coordinator. Sara has some real goals ever since she was little, I think around the age nine or 10 is when she started talking, and one of the things she always talked about was really wanting to work at a hospital, specifically Children's in Boston, and we have our transition team here at One Sky that works with adults, starting at age 14 until they turn 21, so that transition team and the high school had brought this program to Sara and her family's attention, and they all had decided that that would be a good fit for Sara. ROBIN: One Sky Community Services did support her with what they called vocational training, more vocational training, and then still wanting just a little bit more, we sent her to the Institute of Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, Mass., and there is where she did her internship at Children's, and then was hired by Children's. SARA: If I didn't have any access to those programs, I'll be just sitting at home doing nothing. And I don't like doing nothing all day. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Timeline showing Tillman's 15 years at a sheltered workshop. Below, a second timeline shows Sara's internships leading to a full-time job in only five years. A coworker slides a heavy box to Sara. COWORKER: Can you handle it? SARA: Yes. COWORKER: I know you can. SARA: I am super proud of my job because I love being at my job, getting me going. [gentle plucking music] SARA: See you tomorrow. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Sara wheels her cart out of the mailroom. JOAN: When our kids get out of school, a lot of them, where else do they have to go but to come to the workshop, because they have an opportunity to learn, to be trained. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Tillman holds up a photo of himself at graduation. LE'RON: When I was in the sheltered workshop, they told me, "Well, this getting you ready for a job." I said, "I'm already ready for a job." [slow electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Share the full film in your community. Host a screening. BottomDollarsMovie.com End of transcript.

“Bottom Dollars Movie Chapter 03” produced by Rooted in Rights [NARRATOR]: Bottom Dollars Chapter three - "Pennies per hour." [sad piano music] AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Row houses line the street of Baltimore, Maryland. Minimum wage $8.75 per hour. CHARLES: There's no reason to pay us less than the minimum wage. I'm Charles Biebl, I'm from Baltimore, Maryland. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Charles leaves his house using his white cane. CHARLES: I went to the school for the blind all through high school. I was very enthused about working, I wanted to work, and it certainly wasn't what I hoped it would have been. They wanted to throw me in a workshop, a sheltered workshop, and forget about me, and that's what they basically did. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Cheryl Bates-Harris from National Disability Rights Network. CHERYL: I think they persist for a number of reasons. Number one, they're well-funded. There's a pre-vocational service under Medicaid that basically pays for people to go somewhere for seven or eight hours a day. The provider agency is being paid for their mere presence in the workshop, usually on a daily basis. There is a program called AbilityOne. Because the federal government is the largest purchaser of goods and services, this program gives preferential contracts to organizations that employ people with significant disabilities. So, these service providers can basically be guaranteed a lifelong contract. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Mark Riccobono from the National Federation of the Blind. MARK: So, you get all these government programs that really create a great incentive for employers, with the theory that they're there to help people with disabilities, but when you add them all up, they simply serve to shelter people with disabilities and to keep them limited in what they can do. CHERYL: As the providers have gotten more sophisticated, and actually say that they want to teach people job skills. They look to businesses in the community to provide work to them. (MARK): Of course you can pay people with disabilities less than the minimum wage, so you have a built-in competitive advantage to the price of the workforce that you provide. CHARLES: They had contracts like that, of course the workshop would bid on different items, and of course the workshop would say they'll do it for this price, and Western Electric would say, "Okay, we'll give you the work then, since you're the lowest bidder." CHERYL: The companies, we believe, are getting a very good deal. [NARRATOR]: Companies that work with employment agencies that hold 14(c) certificates Vons Boeing Home Depot The Medicine Shop Merriam-Webster Walgreens 3M Best Western Pizza Hut CHERYL: The workshop is getting a lot of money, paying on average under $2 an hour across the country. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Roy Rocha. Bakersfield, California. ROY: And they go, "Okay, let's see how fast you can take a phone apart." I start taking phones apart real quick, and they go, "Oh man, you do it pretty quick," and all this stuff, and I said, "Man, I gonna miss no days, and I'm gonna see how much my first paycheck is." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: James Meadours. San Antonio, Texas. JAMES: When I was in Oklahoma, I was there a short time in my high school, and they said, "We got a job for you." I said, "Cool, a job!" And when I saw my first paycheck, I said, "That's not right!" ROY: And then two weeks came, they were passing out payroll at the program. And I opened it, I go, "$15?" And I took it to the supervisor, I go, "What happened? I didn't miss no days, how come my check's only $15?" JAMES: It was only $7.70. And then I look at the rate, they said it's 50 cents an hour, I said, "Oh my God!" AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Betty Williams. Indianapolis, Indiana. BETTY: How would you like to go into a sheltered workshop and work for two weeks and come out with a $6 check? That happened to me more than once. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A vintage film of Goodwill Industries showing workers in their workshop. (ANNOUNCER): It's spring, and again the rush is on for the Goodwill Industries. Let's leave the customers for a moment while we inspect the operation of this splendid social service agency. CHARLES: When I used to work at Goodwill, that was a same thing kind of a deal. Some people would make maybe 10, 15, 20 dollars a week. MARK: Well, Goodwill is one of the largest employers, and I would say exploiters, of the provisions under the law that permit people with disabilities to be paid less than the minimum wage. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: The Center for Disability Rights. Stephanie works at her desk, seated in her wheelchair. STEPHANIE: I'm Stephanie Woodward, I'm the Director of Advocacy at the Center for Disability Rights in Rochester, New York. We just did a FOIA request from Goodwill. We did Goodwill nationally, for all of their wages. [percussive music] [NARRATOR]: Goodwill hourly wages Grand Island, Nebraska $2.53 per hour Birmingham, Alabama $1.51 per hour Branford, Connecticut $0.40 per hour Cincinnati, Ohio $0.02 per hour STEPHANIE: We found that can be as low as two cents an hour. (INTERVIEWER): Two cents an hour? STEPHANIE: Two cents. MARK: The management is making very, very significant six figure salaries, and they say then that they can't afford to pay people with disabilities a minimum wage. CHERYL: Provider agencies have told us that if they had to pay half of minimum wage that they would probably go bankrupt. [NARRATOR]: CEO Annual Salaries Opportunity Partners, Inc., Minnetonka, Minnesota $198,693 CW Resources, New Britain, Connecticut $293,764 Ohio Valley Goodwill, Cincinnati, Ohio $342,069 Goodwill Industries of Orange County, Santa Anna, California $352,338 Pride Industries Inc., Roseville, California $361,578 Elwyn Inc., Elwyn, Pennsylvania $400,065 Goodwill National, Rockville, Maryland $565,925 AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Photo of Jim Gibbons, CEO of Goodwill. MARK: Quite ironic that the CEO of Goodwill, who is a blind person, thinks that other people with disabilities don't deserve a basic level of equality, and I don't know how you resolve that in your own mind as a person with a disability, except that you don't believe in the concept of equality and civil rights. CHARLES: These places had a vested interest in keeping people there, especially those who could produce. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Charles walks into a convenience store. CHARLES: You may say, "Well, why didn't you quit?" Well, there was nowhere else to go. Western Electric never thought about hiring people like myself to do it, and I would have done very well at it. But they would have had to pay me like everybody else, and they didn't wanna do that. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Charles buys a lottery ticket. (CHARLES): I'm poor now, and I gotta carry that to my grave. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Charles holds up his Mega Millions ticket. CHARLES: If I win, wouldn't that be nice? I spent years doing this stuff in the sheltered workshops, but it really didn't prepare me for anything, they lied to us and said that it would. I was basically sold a bill of goods. [slow electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Share the full film in your community. Host a screening. BottomDollarsMovie.com End of transcript.

“Bottom Dollars Movie Chapter 02” produced by Rooted in Rights [slow electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Bottom Dollars Chapter two - "Even when you hustle..." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A river runs through the small town of Tiffin, Ohio. Minimum wage $8.15 per hour. PAMELA: My name's Pamela Steward. I like to sew, like to walk, like to go shopping and out to eat. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Pamela sewing. (PAMELA): I embroider pillowcases and pass them out to friends and family members. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: She holds up an embroidered pillow. PAMELA: I have a learning disability as of to math, reading, and spelling. I work at Seneca Re-Ad, I work there full time. I've been there for six years. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Barbara's service dog next to her at a conference table. BARBARA: My name is Barbara Corner. I'm an attorney, and I'm also the employment team leader here at Disability Rights Ohio. The Seneca Re-Ad is a sheltered workshop. It basically has one major contract with Roppe, a multimillion-dollar corporation that provides flooring-- tile and flooring, more or less for commercial establishments, and so they contract with Seneca County and with this workshop to provide the tile samples. PAMELA: We sort them, make sure the print's coming out alright, and then if the print's not coming out alright we'll throw them away, and if the print's coming out alright we'll go ahead and chain them. BARBARA: There are other jobs at the workshop, like for instance, Pam has done the saw where she has used a machine to cut holes, and there's an autoprint that-- which is another machine that prints a pattern on the tiles, so it is, in a lot of ways, light industry. PAMELA: I was probably only getting about three-something an hour. BARBARA: Way below what the wages were for people in light industries, which could be up to 11 to 13 dollars an hour. PAMELA: I don't feel that it's right that one person gets paid better than the other. I feel like we should all be paid the same. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Cheryl Bates-Harris from National Disability Rights Network. (CHERYL): Section 14(c) allows employers to pay individuals based on their productivity. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Mark Riccobono from the National Federation of the Blind. MARK: The idea is to compare the productivity of a person with a disability to a non-disabled person. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: The graphic illustrates Time Studies. (CHERYL): Let's say that we were a widget manufacturer, and they test three individuals without disabilities, and they can make nine widgets an hour, 10 widgets an hour, and 11 widgets an hour. Then the expectation would be that the norm would be the average of 10 widgets an hour. A person with a disability trying to make widgets, and he only makes five widgets in an hour. He would therefore be paid 50% of the prevailing wage since he was only producing 50% of the work. But, if a non-disabled worker also only made five widgets an hour, he would still be paid 100% of the wage, because he benefits from the minimal wage protections. MARK: What happens is, people with disabilities are held to a productivity standard while everybody else is guaranteed a wage regardless of how productive they are or not, so basically every person with a disability has to hustle, or you're out of luck, and, even when you hustle, you're not guaranteed the minimum that everybody else gets. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Pamela embroiders a pillowcase. BARBARA: When they tested our clients, they didn't use the exact same testing conditions as for people without disabilities, so that test wasn't fair. PAMELA: I got held up by people slowing me down on the other side, I had to wait for them to bring jigs over to me so I could actually put the pieces on the jigs. Sometimes they'd slow around and not bring the jigs over so the job could be done. I was relying on other people, and I don't feel at all I was tested right. MARK: The Department of Labor has responsibility for monitoring the 14(c) certificates, but there are a lot of them out there, there are a lot of people with disabilities, and there's a limited amount of capacity at the Department of Labor to monitor, so it's the employers are expected to fill out the papers and expected to do it correctly and expected to tell the truth. BARBARA: From what we found out, the Department of Labor basically just looks at the paper certificate, and doesn't do any further investigation. That's why things have just continued the same way they've been for decades. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Pamela cleans her apartment as her cat watches. PAMELA: When I'm working, I feel that I should be paid as an equal person. [slow xylophone music] [NARRATOR]: Share the full film in your community. Host a screening. BottomDollarsMovie.com End of transcript.

“Bottom Dollars Movie Chapter 01” produced by Rooted in Rights [NARRATOR]: The following film features audio description. Listen for this voice for description of important visuals and titles that appear in the film. [slow electronic music] AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Rooted in Rights logo. [NARRATOR]: Chapter one - "Excellent worker." AUDIO DESCRIPTION: The skyline of Rochester, New York. Minimum wage $9.70 per hour. MELANIE: My name is Melanie Oyer, and I work for the Center for Disability Rights. I met Gloria about two years ago, she is one of my clients. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: A photo of Melanie and Gloria together, smiling. MELANIE: She works at a site for people with disabilities, sorting items, working with little objects, putting plastic parts together. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Gloria Marrero uses sign language. GLORIA (from ASL): I worked there for eight years. MELANIE: Her work always talks about how great an employee she is. She's reliable, she's friendly, she's always on time, she never misses work. GLORIA: Yeah they tell me I'm a good worker, my boss loves me. MELANIE: They have specific categories that they evaluate her on, and the best is four out of four, and she received a four out of four on about 20 different categories. AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Gloria's work records. (MELANIE): In one category it says, "Independent Work Rate," and it says, "Excellent worker, on average makes $3.50 an hour." Gloria is the only excellent worker that I know that makes $3.50 an hour. GLORIA: No, it's not fair. (MELANIE): In my opinion, the only reason why an employer would pay somebody so low that's an excellent worker is because it's legal. [driving electronic music] [NARRATOR]: Rooted in Rights presents... AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Film footage of factory workers from the 1930s. (NBC NEWS ANNOUNCER): Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: My friends... AUDIO DESCRIPTION: Families gathered around their radios to listen. ROOSEVELT: After many requests on my part, the Congress passed a Fair Labor Standards Act. That act sets a floor below wages. MARK: I'm Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind. The Fair Labor Standards Act is a Civil Rights statute, and it provides protections to Americans in the workforce. The minimum wage guarantee was revolutionary. If you were going to take a job, you know what the floor is. (ROOSEVELT): It is the most far-sighted program for the benefit of workers that has ever been adopted, here or in any other country. MARK: But the minimum wage is offered to everybody, except for people with disabilities. CHERYL: I am Cheryl Bates-Harris, I'm the Senior Disability Advocacy Specialist with the National Disability Rights Network. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was passed in 1938, there's a section of law called section 14(c). AUDIO DESCRIPTION: 14(c) certificates. MARK: Employers who have a 14(c) certificate pay people with disabilities less than the minimum wage simply based on the fact that they have a disability. So, sub-minimum wage is a term we sometimes use to describe paying people with disabilities a different wage from everybody else. CHERYL: It's intended to be able to give employers the opportunity to hire wounded veterans returning from war. That provision of law was little known and little utilized until sheltered workshops began to flourish in the 50s and the 60s. Sheltered workshop is a congregate facility where people with disabilities go for a period of time during the day. It's very boring, it's shredding newspapers, it's counting nuts, bolts, and screws for packaging. They started for the right reason 50, 60 years ago because parents were keeping their children out of institutions and needed somewhere for them to go during the day. But they've since become an outdated model of segregation. [fast-tempo drum beat] [NARRATOR]: 2016 - 241,265 people with disabilities are paid less than the minimum wage. CHERYL: Statistics show that people with disabilities are at least twice as likely to live below the poverty line. And poverty, I do not believe, is the American dream that we have for our sons and our daughters or our family members, with or without a disability. [NARRATOR]: Bottom Dollars [slow xylophone music] [NARRATOR]: Share the full film in your community. Host a screening. BottomDollarsMovie.com End of transcript.